Maggie the Monster

Frank Lombard, an official at Duke University, was arrested last week and accused not only of molesting his five-year-old son, but of offering him up as a plaything for other creatures like himself. It's a horrible story, and one that should turn the stomach of any parent. But since Lombard is gay and his son was adopted, homophobes near and far seized on the case as "proof" that gays should not be allowed to adopt.

It should go without saying that gay people are no more likely to molest children than straight people are. It should, but unfortunately some people just don't get it.

But that's not what moved me from sickened sympathy to boiling anger at this situation. What finally did the trick was a column by Maggie Gallagher (of National Organization for Marriage/Carrie Prejean infamy) in which she depicts adoption as a Stalinist good ol' boy network which turns a blind eye to pedophilia:

But adoptions are government acts. What did [Lombard's] fellow social workers who approved this adoption know? What did they overlook? What questions didn't they ask because, well, he was "in the club" - one of them?

Adoption is the way we strip a child of his or her natural protection - his mom and dad - and the government steps in to give this baby a new and better father or mother. Preferably both, I say. But I'm old-fashioned.

Does Gallagher even know anyone who was adopted, or any parents who adopted their kids? I highly doubt it, otherwise she would never have written such a thing.

Adoption is not a punishment for the birth parents. It is not some sort of Big Brother intervention. And it definitely is not some kind of secret society, reserving special benefits for those on the inside.

Both our children were adopted. Our son's teenage birth parents voluntarily placed him as a newborn. Our daughter's unknown birth parents abandoned her as an infant. Were they seized from their birth parents and handed over to us willy-nilly, "stripped" of their "natural protection?"

Of course not. But by depicting adoption as she did, Gallagher shows herself to be even more woefully ignorant, not to mention just plain stupid, than she already is.

In her rush to smear all gay parents (and single parents, too) by connecting them to this one loathsome person, Gallagher also smeared me. And my wife. And our kids. And all families formed via adoption.

She should be ashamed of herself.