Frontiers | The Perceptns of New Zealand Lawyers and Social Workers About Children Beg Adopted by Gay Coupl and Lbian Coupl

Contents:

• TIMELE: GAY RIGHTS NEW ZEALAND
• NEW ZEALAND GAY UPL HOLD FIRST WEDDGS
• THE PERCEPTNS OF NEW ZEALAND LAWYERS AND SOCIAL WORKERS ABOUT CHILDREN BEG ADOPTED BY GAY COUPL AND LBIAN COUPL
• MPS ATTEND PROTT AGAST GAY MARRIAGE

TIMELE: GAY RIGHTS NEW ZEALAND

Labour Party MP Gea Beyer hugged by then Prime Mister Helen Clark after her main speech to Zealand has bee the 13th untry the world to legalise same-sex bated the biggt change to gay and transgenr rights sce homosexual law reform 25 years ago, wh a historic vote on the third readg of the Marriage Amendment Bill. Current statSce Feb 1, 1994Illegal some ntexts Unr sectn 21 of the Human Rights Act 1993, discrimatn agast "heterosexual, homosexual, lbian, or bisexual orientatns" is prohibed, wh no other sexual orientatns beg protected. Photo / Mark MchellParliament has jt passed a law legalisg gay marriage, 77 vot to 44, amid loud shows of jubilatn om the floor and the claratn of the vote was followed by a held a nscience vote on the private member's bill sponsored by gay Labour MP Louisa bill will take effect mid Augt and 27 years after New Zealand crimalised homosexualy.

‘Comg out’ was credibly challengg for most gay, lbian, bisexual, and transgenr people, and the risk of discrimatn was very the sixti and seventi, gay activists and groups like the Homosexual Law Reform Society beme more visible and vol llg for equal rights and acceptance, and many New Zealanrs joed them 1985, Fran Wil, a junr MP, sponsored the Homosexual Law Reform Bill. It was long overdue, but was the first step towards tly equal rights for 1993, the Human Rights Act ma discrimatn based on sexual orientatn illegal, and by the end of the twentieth century, New Zealanrs had voted openly gay policians, and the world’s first openly transgenr member of parliament, Gea the early 00s, we turned our attentn to marriage equaly. There are a full range of laws supportg the gay muny place New Zealand – same-sex sexual activy has been legal sce 1986, there are extensive discrimatn protectns and was the 13th untry the world to legalise gay marriage.

When relig settlers brought Christiany to the islands they also brought the notn that homosexualy was a s and subsequently New Zealand adopted Brish law, crimalisg same-sex sexual activy.

NEW ZEALAND GAY UPL HOLD FIRST WEDDGS

It’s worth notg that gay or straight, New Zealand is not a party statn – if gay travellers are prrisg back-to-back partyg and sndalo nights out then Bangkok, Berl or Mykonos might be better statns. Before gettg to specifics, ’s worth remdg potential gay travellers that there are lots of small, isolated towns and villag sttered about the unspoiled landspe of the untry which might have ls progrsive views. The suatn for members of the queer muny is better than the vast majory of other untri the world, so gay travellers should travel there to support the stance on LGBT rights New Zealand.

Hundreds of jubilant gay-rights advot celebrated outsi parliament after the bill was passed, llg a tone for watchg om the public gallery and some lawmakers immediately broke to song, sgg the New Zealand love song "Pokarekare Ana", AP news agency opn polls have suggted that about two-thirds of New Zealanrs support the reform, although others polls suggt the public are more divid. 'Natnal MP Norman Jon addrsg a public meetg 1985 LAGANZ 0080-B, Peter Nowland CollectnOpponents were supported by anisatns such as the Salvatn Army and by well-known overseas mpaigners agast homosexualy – the Reverend Lou Sheldon and John Swan particular. Their arguments often rted on moral and relig grounds: that homosexualy was 'unnatural' and that the Bible nmned people argued that the law would lead to more homosexualy and eventually to the llapse of the fay un.

Homosexualy and paedophilia – sex wh children – were sometim regard as the same of those opposed to the legislatn also raised the spectre of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). 'Bigot Bters rally at Wellgton Town Hall LAGANZ 0503-BGroups such as the New Zealand Homosexual Law Reform Society, the Gay Task Force, Heterosexuals Unaaid of Gays (HUG), the Lbian Coaln and the Campaign for Homosexual Equaly tried to unter their opponents many ways.

THE PERCEPTNS OF NEW ZEALAND LAWYERS AND SOCIAL WORKERS ABOUT CHILDREN BEG ADOPTED BY GAY COUPL AND LBIAN COUPL

’, a documentary broadst on Natnal Rad on 9 July 2006, the 20th anniversary of the fal vote of the prott and rally d was rerd for Accs Rad programm ma by the Gay Broadstg Collective and had not been broadst natnally. A look through the ternatnal rearch lerature shows that spe numero untri awardg statutory rights to marry—and by extensn, adopt—lbian and gay upl ntue to report facg ongog obstacl when tryg to adopt, perpetrated maly by dividual adoptn worker and agency bias (e. Moreover, children whose lbian mothers or gay fathers were origally heterosexual relatnships, will also have both mothers and fathers their liv the same way—and wh the same varyg gree of ntact—as children of heterosexual upl who divorce and remarry.

Moreover, some thors have reported that the psychologil adjtment of children wh same-genr parents is not merely on par wh children raised by heterosexual parents, but that children raised by lbian and gay parents had better psychologil adjtment (Biblarz and Stacey, 2010; Fewa et al., 2015). On the other hand, the lbian and gay fai who are not wedd to the nuclear stcture are fdg themselv and their children larger geic and social kship works… Adoptn wh ntact is a mol of muny or shared parentg that may have lsons for the same-sex parent fai.

It has also been reported that some birth parents tentnally select lbian or gay prospective adopters due to the belief that sexual mory parents embody diversy and would be more tolerant (Farr et al., 2018b). Opponents to same-genr parentg have also argued that children raised by lbian and gay parents will suffer the risk of social harm (Black, 2005), due to beg stigmatized, harassed, or bullied by peers. Importantly, has also been suggted by other rearchers that if the offsprg of same-genr parents do turn out to be homosexual, the likelihood is extremely high that they will grow up more acceptg environments, than did many lbian and gay dividuals who grew up heterosexual hom (Carastathis et al., 2017; VanrWaal et al., 2017).

MPS ATTEND PROTT AGAST GAY MARRIAGE

Regardls of the eventual sexual inty of children raised by lbian and gay parents, the offsprg are beg raised acceptg environments that promote more tolerance of diversy, which many of the children/young adults themselv believe to be a beneficial by-product of their unique fay life (Welsh, 2011). Fally, one of the earlit and more nigratg myths about same-genr parentg is the notn that children raised by gay or lbian parents are more likely to be sexually abed, which appears to stem om the belief that homosexuals are sexually viant people (Hicks, 2006).

In a subsequent study, Brodzsky (2003) reported aga that all of Christian fundamentalist and Baptist agenci (and a majory of Mormon, Catholic, and Methodist) refed to work wh homosexual adopters.

For stance, Mallger (2010) found that a group of social workers the Uned Stat, relig fundamentalism fluenced dividual attus toward lbian and gay adopters, and rced the likelihood of children beg placed wh same-genr prospective adopters (Mallger, 2010). As noted earlier the paper, often acpanyg the Christian fundamentalist beliefs that unrp much of the homophobia experienced by prospective adopters, is a nservative or right-wg polil iology. (2008) om the Uned Stat, found that liberalism/nservatism was a signifint predictor of whether or not the child welfare workers that study would place children wh lbian and gay parents.

Also scribed as stutnal discrimatn (Goldberg et al., 2013) and profsnal homophobia (Ryan et al., 2004), the placement bias are often subtle but sometim manift as more overt forms of discrimatn by adoptn agency staff (Kkler and Goldberg, 2011). The rearch rponnts explaed that while the lbian and gay upl were regularly approved, their home study reports were beg “…wrten such ways that nobody will ever accept them as adoptive fai bee there are enough issu intified the study that people will not go forward and place children wh them” (p.

(2008), for example, their qualative study of the mental health out of lbian adoptive mothers Canada, found that one of the most signifint fluenc on the women’s sense of wellbeg was “subtle, sid homophobia and/or heterosexism” (p. In his qualative terviews wh gay adoptive upl the Uned Stat, Giano (2008) scribed untls exampl of how the men need to negotiate their own type of duplicy that volved non-disclosure of their sexual orientatn.

Yet, while such omissns about beg lbian or gay may appear to some prospective adopters to crease their chanc of succsfully adoptg, will more than likely mean that only one parent will be regnized as the “legal” parent. This body of work has emphasized that wh the crimal jtice systems, lbian women and gay men have long been the objects of negative stereotyp, prejudice, discrimatn and even vlence on the basis of their sexual orientatn (Williams, 2015; Knight and Wilson, 2016). The ternatnal rearch also shows that spe hard-won statutory rights to marry—and by extensn, adopt—lbian and gay upl ntue to enunter barriers when tryg to adopt, perpetrated maly by the biased attus of agenci and dividual adoptn workers (Ryan et al., 2004; Brodzsky, 2003; Matthews and Cramer, 2006; Sullivan and Harrgton, 2009).

Hence, may be that for lbian and gay upl, wng the right to legally marry is merely the first hurdle; changg the attus of dividual adoptn workers—and lawyers—might be the next hurdle to overe their qut to bee adoptive parents.

Wh the relatively recent passage of law New Zealand, permtg lbian and gay upl to marry—and adopt—we saw an opportuny to explore the issu outsi of the domant North Amerin and European ntexts, a untry perceived to be clive and progrsive s treatment of the LGBT muny. In terms of empiril rearch on the untry’s attus toward homosexualy, two studi (Kelley, 2001; Smh, 2011) found New Zealand to be the middle range of sr, relative to the other 28 and 41 untri (rpectively).

Importantly, both studi reported that most of the untri (New Zealand clud) showed bimodal distributns their attus; if the majory of people a untry eher approved or disapproved of homosexualy, the send largt group often took the oppose stance. In so dog, the analysis began wh an ial 49 different s for how people scribed their sexual orientatn, some of which uld not be classed wh the bary stcture of heterosexual vers homosexual. In fact, New Zealand has had openly gay and lbian members of Parliament sce 1993, and even the New Zealand Police and the Royal New Zealand Navy are said to have long had “gay-iendly” polici.

At a time when the puranil views of the Wt saw homosexualy as somethg viant, Māori had the ncept of takatāpui, “pann of the same sex, ” which was a normal part of early Māori culture. Internatnal adoptns, on the other hand, are not available to lbian or gay dividuals or upl: “No untri we work wh accept applitns om upl facto, civil unn or same-sex relatnships; this rults om the overseas untri’ legislatn, polici and culture” [ICANZ (Inter-Country Adoptn New Zealand), 2020].