Parenting: Should Same-sex Couples Be Allowed to Adopt a Child

Moral Philosophy is the rational study of the meaning and justification of moral claims ('What is Moral Philosophy'. n.d.). Most moral philosophers who explore the intersection of homosexuality and morality are at pains either to determine the moral permissibility of homosexual behavior or to determine whether homosexual orientations provide the same opportunities for flourishing, altruism, and virtue as heterosexual orientations do. In this paper, we will research the question should same-sex couples be allowed to adopt from the moral side and applied ethics.

Applied ethics, also called practical ethics examines specific moral issues. Practical ethics is the critical inquiry into the norms embedded in particular social practices: that branch of ethics which is concerned with the application of ethical principles to the consideration of real-life practical moral problems, such as abortion, euthanasia, animal rights, ecology, race and gender issues, the morality of war and so on. Applied ethics is the application of general ethical theories to moral problems with the objective of solving the problems. When applied ethics began to receive acceptance in philosophy, it was widely presumed that the ‘applied’ part involves the application of basic moral principles or theories to particular moral problems or cases. This vision suggests that ethical theory develops general principles, rules, and the like, whereas applied ethics treats particular contexts through less general, derived principles, rules, judgments, and the like.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, pansexual, transgender, genderqueer, queer, intersex, a-gender, asexual, and other queer-identifying communities. Different prefixes and names but all of them are the same and human just like us. Some people don't accept them and think of them differently. They have the same rights but they are treated differently by other people who have different perspectives and beliefs. Adopting a child and marrying are some of the things that are forbidden from them but this doesn't mean that they are bad and don't qualify as a parent or they don't have the right to marry who they want to marry. Even a straight man or a woman abuses and abandons his or her child and some end up living with divorced parents. There are thousands of children waiting to be loved, protected, and sheltered so they can belong to a family but our society and the law are not yet ready for this change. Furthermore, our country in some ways based entirely on its laws through our religion. Most Filipinos are Roman Catholics and are very conservative, they practiced everything on what they read through the scriptures from the bible. But we also have to accept the fact that times have changed. Although there are already some acceptance made throughout the years about the rights of the LGBTQ, there are still people who are against it and believe that being a homosexual is a sin and against the word of God.

In our country, there are specific qualities in order to adopt a child and that includes marriage. Same-sex marriage was filed by several lawyers including Jesus Falcis in 2015, a gay lawyer. He asked the court to recognize marriage equality in the Philippines and argued about the restrictions that violate the rights of homosexuals to due process, their protection, and forming a family in the Philippine Constitution. In 2017, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez also opened this issue and filed a bill that would create civil partnerships, that would grant same-sex couples the ability to jointly adopt, marry, inherit property, obtain tax benefits, and share insurance, this was debated in 2018 but has not been voted on. There are lots of times that this problem was opened for us to solve but it was rejected and not supported.

In our opinion, LGBTQ should have the right to adopt a child, we assent to this in view of the fact that they are not different from us. In today's generation having a boundary between LGBTQIA+ is not a ‘thing’ anymore. Discriminating against other people based on their gender is slowly being fought and equality among them is slowly progressing. As we can see in our world today, more and more children are added on the streets and abandoned every day, they are brought to this cruel world by their parents and are left behind. I think their parents consisting of a straight man and a woman are more inhumane, and irresponsible and should not deserve to have a child. But these people, homosexuals are ready to shelter, take care and love them but our society would not allow them just because of their gender. Having a different gender does not make them less human or less than us, and with that being said they should have the same rights that we have and do the things they want without restrictions.

We agree to same-sex couples' rights to adopt a child because of the fact that they can really be a parent to any child just like us. I believe that sexual orientation does not influence parenting skills. We think it is totally irrational to say that gay parents are bad or cannot take care of a child because they are gay. Research also shows that the children of same-sex couples are no different than the kids of straight couples when it comes to socializing and school performance. Lastly, regardless of whether the child has a mom and dad, two moms or two dads will be the same and will still be called a family. Children deserve to be raised in a household with couples who really want a child in their life and are going to provide them with the care and love they deserve for their entire life.