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Gays and lesbians are stepping up their national battle against restrictive state regulations, conservative Christians, and others to gain the same parenting rights as heterosexuals.

"There is no doubt that homosexuals love their children," says Suzanne Cook, a Christian who was raised in part by her divorced father living with his gay lover. "But it takes more than love to raise children in an appropriate and healthy way. We shouldn't be experimenting on another generation."

The Federal Appeals Court in Atlanta will decide this year whether to uphold a Florida law that says, "No person eligible to adopt … may adopt if that person is a homosexual." Also, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will rule on a legal challenge to the state's ban on "co-adoption" by a gay or lesbian couple. Only Florida, Mississippi, and Utah explicitly ban homosexuals from adoption.

Cook, a resident of Fort Worth, Texas, has an insider's perspective on homosexual parenting. Cook told CT that when she was seven years old her father left the family to pursue a homosexual relationship. Three years later, her parents divorced but shared custody. Cook and her younger brother spent every other weekend at the apartment of her father's partner. "They did not refrain from having sex when we were there," Cook says. "They didn't come out of the bedroom until noon."

Cook says her father's partner molested her brother for the next several years. "I had to deal with keeping my brother safe," Cook says. "I had to put on the role of a parent as a little kid. I felt the whole world on my shoulders." (Cook's father declined comment to CT.)

Confused about her sexuality as a young teenager, Cook supposed the only way to have a relationship with a man was to offer sex. Even her mother encouraged her to have sexual relations outside marriage so that she would not mistakenly wed a homosexual.

Cook's life included adultery, group sex, and an abortion. In time, her brother led Cook, now 44 and married for 16 years, to Christian faith.

Cook strongly supports a ban on gay adoptions. She says that children with homosexual parents avoid criticizing parental sexual behavior when responding to questions in research projects. (Experts say "self-presentation bias," in which those surveyed give an "overly positive picture of their family life," causes significant flaws in research.)

University of Southern California researchers Judith Stacey and Timothy J. Biblarz published an article titled "(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?" last year in American Sociological Review. Stacey and Biblarz examined 21 gay-parenting studies. They concluded that there is "no notable difference between children reared by heterosexual parents and those reared by lesbian and gay parents."

Stacey, 59, told CT that society should consider the desires of adults as well as the welfare of children regarding gay parenting. "It's both a civil rights issue and a children's rights issue," she says.

The progay Lambda Legal Defense Fund, in a 1997 document, notes that "the last decade has seen a sharp rise among gay people planning and forming families through adoption, foster care, donor insemination, and other reproductive technologies. Some have described the current period as a lesbian and gay 'baby boom.' "

But homosexuals should not be permitted to adopt or provide foster care, because it's not in the best interest of children, said Alan Chambers, head of Exodus North America, a Christian ministry that assists individuals in overcoming homosexuality.

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July 8 2002, Vol. 46, No. 8