This post was submitted by John "Jolly" Bavoso

The truth is that, whether due to geographic or situational reasons, very little of what I write about week after week in this column has any direct impact on my life.  Just about every single topic does indirectly affect me, however, either simply because of the fact that I’m a gay man on this planet or because I can easily imagine how the subject could come up in the future or could have had a major impact on an alternate version of my life.

I have no desire whatsoever to join the military, but I have an idea of how furious and hurt I would be if I was told I could not perform a job I am passionate about and proficient at. I lack both the maturity and interested partner that would make the same-sex marriage fight highly personal to me, but, having spent the weekend celebrating my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary, I can’t say I didn’t pause briefly to consider all of the couples who will never be able to reach such a legal milestone. It was also during this time, as I looked around a dinner table on Saturday night that I shared with my parents and siblings, that it struck me that, having an adopted sister, in many places in the world today our family would not have been possible had my parents been the same sex.

From a pragmatic standpoint, same-sex adoption seems like a no-brainer. In a world increasingly marked by absent parents, unplanned pregnancies and millions of children around the world in need of loving homes, the idea of turning away couples willing to fight in court for the opportunity to share their love and resources with another human being seems to boggle the mind. Clearly notions of “morals” and traditional families monopolize the debate on this issue, and, as the passage of a gay adoption ballot initiative in Arkansas demonstrated last year, it is a highly contentious one. Gay marriage between two consenting adults is controversial enough, but start throwing “the children” into it, and people on both sides of the issue tend to hold particularly strong feelings.

With this in mind, it’s exciting to report that several countries around the world have taken steps in the last few weeks towards adoption equality.

Closest to home would be the Latin American country of Uruguay. The country’s Chamber of Representatives has passed a bill allowing adoption by gay and lesbian couples and it will now move to a vote in the Senate next month. This latest move is part of a large transition for the South American country, which legalized civil unions in 2007 and lifted their ban on LGBT peoples in the military this past May. If the bill passes in the Senate, which it did in July prior to a round of revisions that led to its current version, then Uruguay will officially be the first Latin American country to recognize gay adoptions.

This political victory, however, has not come without societal opposition, represented most strongly by the Roman Catholic Church in the country. When asked for his reaction, Nicolas Cotugno, Archbishop of Montevideo, replied: “The adoption of children by homosexual couples is not a question of religion, philosophy or sociology. It has to do with respect for human nature itself. To accept the adoption of children by homosexual couples is to go against human nature itself, and consequently, it is to go against the fundamental rights of the human being as a person.”

In other words, he sees allowing a child to be raised by two loving, same-sex parents as a violation of the child’s rights, but denying such an arrangement isn’t seen as a violation of said couple’s rights. This is a theme that comes up again and again in this debate – the rights of the child vs. the rights of LGBT couples, as if the two were by definition mutually exclusive and at odds with one another.

Also in the news recently has been New Zealand. In a recent speech, the acting head judge the country’s Family Court, Paul von Dadelszen, publicly took his fellow countrymen and women to task for lagging behind other parts of the world in terms of adoption equality. He also called for de facto heterosexual couples to be allowed to adopt, which would further open up the process, which is now limited to straight married couples.

Von Dadelszen also supported his arguments with facts, saying: “[Research] does not support any scientific basis for discrimination against homosexuals with regard to fitness to parent. In a 2003 study it was shown that there was no evidence of gender confusion in boys and girls brought up in lesbian-led families. Other criticisms center on the belief that having homosexual parents may produce [gay] children … Putting aside the obvious implication in that statement [that children turning out to be gay is wrong], studies have shown that the range of sexual orientation among children raised by same-sex couples is no different from that for children of heterosexual families.”

While a bill legalizing gay adoption has been introduced by a gay member of the Green Party, it is but one among many bills that Parliament may deal with year, and it may never come up for a vote. The fact that it’s even being discussed openly, however, can be viewed as progress.

Finally, also following in this trend is Germany. Last week, the country’s Federal Constitutional Court confirmed that gay and lesbian individuals may adopt their partner’s children, a decision which overturned a previous lower court ruling. The case centered on a woman who wanted her female partner to adopt her children, against the objections of the child’s biological father. The court made a clear statement in its ruling: “The earlier decision failed to consider the fact that the role of a child’s parent is not only determined by his or her biological progenitor but based on the social-familial community caring for the child.” While this is certainly significant, it is important to note that Germany only allows gay adoptions if one of the parents is related to the child – so a same-sex couple still may not adopt an unrelated child.

While there’s a lot of work left to be done in this area, these stories are encouraging – both for LGBT couples and the children around the world who are in need of their love and support.

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