Russian Adoptions Might Be Out of The Question

This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave orders to the Supreme Court to make changes to Russian adoption laws in order to prevent same-sex foreign couples from adopting Russian children. Since same-sex marriage isn’t legal in Russia, it’s already impossible for same-sex couples to adopt within the country; but because a gay marriage bill may soon be passed by the French Senate and France recently voted to legalize same-sex adoptions, the Russian President is afraid that if he doesn’t do something, it’ll only be a matter of time before there’ll be lots of gay French couples lining up to adopt Russian children, which he believes will be nothing short of psychologically traumatizing for Russian children.

As evidence that same-sex families are bad for kids, President Putin is citing the case of Yegor Shabatalov, a Russian orphan who was adopted by an American lesbian couple who divorced and are now fighting over Shabatalov. This hasn’t been an ideal situation for the child but it just shows that just like heterosexual couples, homosexual couples have the same issues. This case proves nothing more than that two parents decided to get a divorce because their relationship was not working. It doesn’t really provide an evidence that being adopted by a same-sex couple isn’t good for a child. It’s an unfortunate situation that is being manipulated by President Putin.

Over the past twenty years, there have been around 60,000 Russian children adopted by American families, and at least twenty have died because of mistreatment or accidents. Because of these statistics and many Russian diplomats’ beliefs that the U.S justice system isn’t adequately protecting Russian children in American homes, come January 2014, all American families (gay and straight) will no longer be able to adopt Russian children.

The Russian government has made it clear that it will not recognize French or British same-sex couples as legitimate, and the head of the ‘All-Russian Parents’ Assembly wants to take legislation a step further and ban all foreign adoptions because it is “technically difficult to verify the adoptive parents’ sexual orientation and their legal status can be marriage of convenience.”

Though President Vladimir Putin wants the ban on foreign same-sex adoption to come into effect by July 1st of this year, it may take longer to be decided if it will only be same-sex couples or all foreign couples who’ll be banned from adopting Russian children.

We welcome your comments on this article - share your thoughts with the community! Your email address will not be published.