[AngelaMartin]

Have you ever heard of anyone who has been discriminated against in adoption proceedings because of their looks/way they dress/etc.? How about religion? Race? I'm just curious. I wonder how many people are turned off not by adoption itself, but by the agencies. I know that I was terrified that the agency would deem me and my husband "not good enough" on some level when we were looking to adopt.

I've been doing a little research and realized how much harder it is for gay people to adopt, and it made me wonder how many kids are going without a decent home because of discrimination or fear by the potential parents that they will be rejected based on superficial things. I believe it's more important that the parents are stable and loving and less important that they are "conventional".

I'm a member of the Unitarian church, but have a very eastern mysticism/Bhuddist/eclectic slant to my beliefs, so it was a little unnerving for me. I had to admit that I don't go to church, just practice my spirituality on my own. I hope to be able to take my daughter to some sort of religious education at a UU or similiar church, but my schedule is pretty crazy. Hopefully, I'll meet another UU parent who'll play chaperone on the Sundays I work.

I was also relieved that no one questioned the fact that my husband and I are vegan. I was praying that we wouldn't get a nutrition lesson from our social worker. I'm adopting internationally, so I'm not sure how they treat this information in the packet that gets sent to China. Maybe they leave it out, since it might be confusing!

When I was looking for agencies, one of them refused to work with me and my husband since we weren't Christian, but we just found another one who would.

Angie

[hotspice58]

I was certified and we had a gay couple. In NY, gays can foster and adopt. I don't think the vegetarianism will be a problem as long as the kids are healthy. I would't think they'd discriminate as too many kids need homes, but you never know.

[Bubbette]

Angie, I worry about this more than I can say...

My husband is Southern Baptist, but I am an Eclectic Pagan. We also don't wish to try to have biological children.

I worry about how to explain these and not make others feel like we don't deserve a baby because I'm not Christian and we aren't infertile.

Monica

[rbporlando]

DH and I have also talked about the fear of not being picked b/c of our faith - we're both Jewish, and plan to raise our child the way we were both brought up. Believe it or not, that also played a role in our initial discussions of what kind of adoption we wanted to pursue - b/c of the part of the country we live in - we didn't want our child to ever feel isolated in any way....