Rough draft op-ed

This is a very ROUGH draft and needs an introduction that will pull the reader in and state my stance and a better ending!

All gay and lesbian couples encounter struggles encountered when trying to adopt a child. “Only Florida and Utah specifically prohibit lesbians and gay men from adopting children, but that doesn't mean it's easy to adopt in other states,” says Nolo.com, a website that offers legal advice for family and business. The website says, gay couples encounter numerous problems when trying to adopt a child including prejudice in the judicial system and even being rejected by some adoption agencies. OrphanStatistics.com, sponsored by the Home for Good Foundation explains that 5,760 children become orphans each day. Most of these children either spend the duration of their lives in orphanages or foster homes, never actually getting the quality lifestyle that they deserve. If gay couple adoption was a more widely accepted practice, more children would have the chance to feel the love of a family. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force states, “Given the huge waiting list for adoptive homes among children in foster care, restricting adoptive parents to heterosexual married couples effectively cheats children out of the chance to grow up in a loving home.” But why, do you ask, is there such a prejudice against gay couple adoption? The skeptics of gay couples adopting have many. According to a poll website entitles “Should Gays and Lesbians be Allowed to Adopt Children?”, one of the major complaints is the claim that gay and lesbian people are more likely to molest children than straight people. In reality, that statement is a myth that should be brought into the light. In as early as 1998, The Journal of the American Medical Association had a study in it that said that 90% of those who molest children are men. It also stated that 95% of these pedophiles were heterosexual. As you can see, these statistics offer clear proof that homosexuals do not have a greater chance to molest children, let alone responsible homosexuals engaging in a long-term relationship, getting ready to adopt a child. The biggest argument, according to the poll website, made against gay couples adopting is that gay couples are “unfit” parents; they can’t raise a child the right way; they aren’t able to parent and help their children grow up in a healthy environment. Doctor Ellen Perrin states that growing scientific research shows that children who grow up with one or two homosexual parents “fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual.” People opposed to gay couples adopting assume that sexual orientation is something that is particularly important to raising a successful child. Pending parents should be assessed on more credible evaluations than homosexuality or heterosexuality. For example, do the parents show up for the kid’s baseball game? Were they there to attend their daughter’s parent-teacher conferences? Do they take the time to read their son a bedtime story? Are they willing to tell their child they love them at least once a day? Those are the kinds of things that make great parents. Taylor Gandossy, a reporter for CNN, says there were 65,000 children that had been adopted and were being raised by gay couples in the United States in 2007. In Gandossy’s article, he talks about a gay couple that had two adoptive children. The couple explains that it is not important for them to be straight or to be biological parents. It is only important for them to love their child.