Earlier this week I wrote about pending legislation in Tennessee. Here’s a story about very similar legislation moving along in Kentucky. The bill bars unmarried couples from adopting children. (Put another way, only married couples can adopt.) In ruling out all unmarried couples these bills necessarily rule out all lesbian and gay couples, since these states do not permit lesbian and gay couples to marry.
Generally speaking, you’ll find bills like this justified by saying that married couples are more stable than unmarried couples. That may be true of heterosexual couples, where unmarried couple are choosing not to marry. You can argue, at least, that the most stable heterosexual couples are the ones that choose to marry. (I’m not buying this right now, just offering up the argument.) But you cannot say the same thing for same-sex couples. Same-sex couples in Tennessee and Kentucky are not choosing not to marry, they are barred from marriage.
I think the little surge of similar legislation is not a coincidence. The efforts to bar lesbians and gay men from adopting simply because they are lesbians and gay men have generally been unsuccessful. These statutes are a slightly different tack towards the same goal. And, of course, they further illustrate the entanglement of marriage and parentage.
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