Gay Foster Parents More Apt to Molest

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No matter how professionals in our society extol the virtues of ‘science,’ if empirical evidence goes against their beliefs, they often ignore it or avoid it. The employment of homosexuals as foster parents is a perfect case in point.

Editor’s Note: Since FRI's Chairman, Dr.Paul Cameron, was personally involved in these matters, this report is written as a first person account

When a 16 year-old foster son was molested and raped by two gay foster parents in Vermont, Tom Moore, Deputy of the State’s Social and Rehabilitation Services, told me on June 25, 2002 that neither he nor the Commissioner knew of any evidence about the molestation rates of children by homosexual foster parents. He was apparently echoing his boss, Commissioner William Young, who the papers quoted as saying “I don’t know of any screening instrument for [sexual molestation]. Certainly, sexual preference doesn’t have anything to do with it, or religious beliefs or socioeconomic status. It’s so frustrating because there isn’t a predictor.” (Rutland Herald 6/21/02)

Really? Traditional common sense holds that married parents are likely to be the best foster placement, and homosexuals among the worst, in part because of the risks of sexual molestation. But tradition holds almost no weight for these bureaucrats. How can this be? Can the traditions that worked to build arguably the world’s most successful culture be ignored without injuring society? What kind of belief-system is so much better that it should be followed instead?

When I interviewed the reporter who wrote the story for the Rutland Herald, he refused to specify whether what he had called the “male couple” in the newspaper story was in fact a homosexual couple. He said that the Rutland Herald never released the sexual orientations of those accused of crimes. When I spoke with his editor, she repeated the policy. The “male couple” certainly acted as though they were gay, but the newspaper staff wasn’t about to say or print it.

Fortunately, those at the District Court of Vermont were not so protective of ‘sexual orientation privacy.’ They provided the entire record. The rest of the story about the 16 year-old fit traditional common sense perfectly.

It turns out that the natural parents of the boy who was victimized strenuously objected to the placement of their hard-to-control son with these two gays. Yet, following a policy laid down 15 years ago, their objections were ignored. Additionally, when the boy complained to the Department that his new foster parents had asked him whether he had engaged in anal intercourse with his brother, the Department, through David Stanley, its Case Worker, concluded that the boy had been ‘coached’ to say this by his natural parents. Stanley said the gay foster parents denied saying such a thing and he believed them. So as far as the case worker was concerned, the boy had lied, so he was forced to stay with the ‘male couple.’

Soon thereafter, the men gave the boy a magazine containing depictions of scantily clad men. They told the boy to ‘masturbate to these pictures.’ The boy complied, and hid the magazine under his bed.

Here, another factor of the case supported traditional common sense. Traditional thought holds that homosexuals have difficulty containing their sexual desires for youth. And sure enough, even in the face of all this investigation and conflict about possible molestation, the boy was with these homosexuals only two more weeks before they began to rape him!

Think of it. The investigation had already put these two gays ‘on notice,’ and yet this warning kept them from acting upon their temptation for only two weeks. Then, both men, who were in a ‘committed relationship’ with one another, had their way sexually with the boy. Sometimes, just one of them raped the boy alone, sometimes it happened when they were together. The boy managed to escape only by pretending that the sex was OK, and then fleeing to a hospital when the ‘family’ went to town to shop.

As it turned out, the men’s magazine was the ‘clincher’ when the boy fingered his foster ‘parents.’ Because the magazine was where the boy said it was, the police were able to get the men to confess.

Notice what happened here. Vermont’s child protective agency, without evidence of any sort, adopted a new policy 15 years ago that discarded tradition. Why? Because traditional common sense relegated homosexuals as ‘not suitable for foster-placement’ status. The child protective agency thought it had a ‘better way.’

What was this ‘better way?’ What is this belief system that is so much better than traditional thought?

I filed a Freedom of Information request regarding this case and the policy changes that had been instituted by the agency, asking 17 specific questions. Some of these included: how many foster parents or foster parent pairs who have been involved in foster parenting a child or children were homosexual? Did your department conclude that the 16 year-old boy’s claim was false that his foster parents had asked him whether he performed anal intercourse with his brother?

Less than a month later, Jody Racht, the Assistant Attorney General for Vermont, informed me that asking specific questions rather than “access to identified public records” fell outside of “any provision of state law.”

So while certain policies had apparently been established to protect homosexuals -- both in the child protective agency and at the Rutland Herald -- neither institution would explain their basis. They just followed ‘the policy.’

Deputy Commissioner Moore said that, because of privacy and confidentiality concerns, no follow-up of placements with homosexuals had been conducted, nor were any contemplated. This strategy of ‘deliberate ignorance’ is not unique to Vermont. Over the past 10 years, I have talked with representatives of the District of Columbia, El Paso County (Colorado Springs, CO), and Seattle, WA -- jurisdictions which place foster children with homosexuals -- and gotten the same replies. In Colorado Springs, the wishes of the family regarding the placement of a 6 year-old boy -- whose lesbian mother was judged unsuitable to parent -- were overridden by child protective services in favor of the ‘right of homosexuals to keep their children.’ The little boy was given to a lesbian couple instead of his married aunt -- an aunt who had been chosen by the extended family as the ‘best fit’ for the boy.

The social work representatives in the other three jurisdictions with whom I had contact said that since the National Association of Social Workers [NASW] declared homosexuals to be foster parents ‘as fit’ as heterosexuals, they believed that they were as unlikely to sexually abuse their charges as non-homosexuals. Indeed, the 1987 NASW resolution decrying “resistance to using single parents,... including lesbian and gay parents, as potential foster care and adoption resources” was passed, in substantial part, to counter the traditional belief that children placed with homosexual foster parents would be at higher risk of sexual exploitation.

This NASW resolution and the new ‘theory’ behind it has informed social workers for the past 15 years. In one high profile case in 1992, the faculty of the Saint Cloud State University Social Work Department told potential students that this new ‘theory’ trumped not only traditional common sense, but also any religious beliefs. These faculty decreed that ‘social homophobia’ is a form of “human oppression.” And citing the NASW code of ethics (Sec. 2.3), they noted that “accepting gay and lesbian people does not mean accepting them as individuals while simultaneously abhorring their behavior.... The only legitimate position of the social work profession is to abhor the oppression that is perpetrated in gay and lesbian people and to act personally and professionally to end the degradation in its many forms.” That is, this ‘new faith statement’ must trump any other belief -- including traditional religious beliefs like Christianity.

Is the NASW claim that homosexual and unmarried foster parents are ‘as fit’ as married heterosexuals warranted? No empirical literature concerning the issue appears to exist -- although the evidence regarding the general parenting of homosexuals suggests that it is inferior to that of the married. Under the current system for placing foster children, putting the NASW claim to an empirical test cannot be done. The bureaucrats who could track the success of homosexual foster parents refuse to do so, and -- citing privacy and confidentiality concerns -- also prevent outsiders from doing it.

The ‘faith’ of the social worker profession, consisting of resolutions passed by a tiny committee within the NASW, is sufficient. No evidence is required! What a maddening mess! Fortunately, I found a way to bypass the current bureaucratic strategy of ‘deliberate ignorance’ regarding foster placements with homosexuals. My strategy exploited recent changes in the technology of newspaper publishing.

While a successful foster-parenting outcome does not make the news, a highly unsuccessful outcome does. If homosexual foster parents do not differ from non-homosexuals, gross failure at foster parenting -- such as the sexual molestation of foster kids -- ought to occur at rates approximately proportionate to the frequencies of homosexual and heterosexual foster parents. Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, an internet search service, scans the whole text of over 50 regional and national newspapers, largely in the U.S., but also including major papers in Australia, England, Canada, and New Zealand (e.g., Baltimore Sun, Boston Globe, Independent [England], Ottawa Citizen [Canada]).

This past summer, I examined every news story from 1989 through 2001 that included “child molestation” -- a total of 5,492 stories. The findings were double-checked by also running “foster” against this database in early September, 2002. Only news stories or first-person accounts were tallied, not editorials nor opinion pieces, so the stories basically covered recent events, not reflections on older items.

This technique is obviously different from a comparison study where matched parents -- homosexual and heterosexual -- are randomly drawn from the total set of foster parents to see how they stack up. News stories are limited in the content they cover, nor are they necessarily consistent from reporter to reporter or paper to paper. Nonetheless, this method has its advantages. News stories are reports about ‘the real world,’ and not just responses to questionnaires from people who know they are being questioned or scrutinized.

Only a few of the news stories listed the sexual preferences of the perpetrators. Nevertheless, following the classification of method of infection for AIDS by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, I was able to classify the perpetrators by the kinds of sex they engaged in (e.g., ‘male with male’ was considered homosexual, ‘male with female’ heterosexual). Since marital status is generally provided in stories about child molestation, where it was not reported, the perpetrator was assumed to be unmarried.

Thirty stories about molestation of foster kids were located. They were numbered by date of the first newspaper story about the molestation, from 1 to 30. The location and date are given below. In 22 stories foster children were sexually abused. Five stories bore upon the character of the foster parent or guardian, though no foster child was reported as having been sexually molested. In three stories, foster caregivers molested their charges as they were held in group quarters.

1. Arlington, VA (3/2/89): An unmarried man, who had had boys placed in his home for 10 years, was charged with having sex with one of the foster boys (this was counted as one homosexual male perpetrator, one victim).

2. San Diego (3/1/89): A mother (who was married to an oft-absent husband in the military) and son lost their foster day care license when charges of possible molestation of two children were filed against her (counted as a female perpetrator and two victims of unknown sex).

4. Los Angeles (6/6/90): A man and wife lost their license when the man was accused of molesting two foster daughters (counted as a heterosexual male perpetrator and two girl victims).

7. St. Louis (10/21/90): An unmarried man, both a foster parent to one boy and the supervisor of a unit at a children’s home, was convicted of molesting his foster son as well as 4 other boys at the home (counted as a homosexual male perpetrator and one boy victim).

8. British Columbia, Canada (3/26/92): A man (marital status not provided) was released from prison for molesting a 14 year old foster daughter (counted as a male heterosexual perpetrator and one girl victim).

10. Los Angeles (7/8/93): A man and wife lost their foster care license when the man was charged with molesting 2 of his foster daughters (counted as a male heterosexual perpetrator and 2 girl victims).

11. St. Petersburg, FL (1/11/94): An unmarried man was convicted of molesting his 12 year-old foster son (counted as a homosexual male perpetrator and one boy victim).

12. Maryland (4/16/94): An unmarried judge was charged with molesting his 17 year-old foster son (counted as a homosexual male perpetrator and one boy victim).

13. San Francisco (12/13/94): A married man was convicted of molesting boys and girls, including 3 foster children (counted as one homosexual male perpetrator and 3 victims of unknown sex).

15. Atlanta (1/30/97): A married man molested his 12 year-old foster son (counted as a homosexual male perpetrator and one boy victim).

17. Connecticut (3/22/97): A man and wife lost their foster care license when he was accused of molesting his foster son (counted as a homosexual male perpetrator and a boy victim).

18. New York (6/29/97): An apparently unmarried foster mother sexually molested her foster daughter from the time she was age 5 until she was 17 (counted as a homosexual female perpetrator and a female victim).

19. Seattle (12/3/97): An unmarried couple molested an 8 year-old foster daughter (counted as a homosexual female perpetrator and a male heterosexual perpetrator and a female victim).

21. England (12/5/98): An unmarried foster parent was convicted of molesting his 12 year-old foster son (counted as a homosexual male perpetrator and a boy victim).

22. Atlanta (2/27/99): An unmarried foster parent was convicted of molesting his 3 foster children, a girl and two boys (counted as a homosexual male perpetrator and a girl and two boy victims).

23. Boston (11/3/99): A married foster parent was convicted of molesting “foster children” (counted as a male perpetrator with 2 victims of unknown sex).

24. Toronto (4/3/00): A married foster parent was convicted of molesting a foster daughter (counted as a heterosexual male perpetrator and a girl victim).

25. San Diego (4/25/00): A married foster parent was convicted of molesting two twin 9 year-old foster daughters (counted as a heterosexual male perpetrator and two girl victims).

26. San Diego (6/23/00): A unmarried foster father was charged with sexual improprieties with his foster son, 11, and hiring him out for sex with other men (counted as a homosexual male perpetrator and a boy victim).

28. San Diego (9/24/00): An unmarried openly homosexual male, living with a partner who was a convicted homosexual child molester (the partner had sexually abused his own son and daughter), was given custody of an 11 year-old foster son. He then raped him. Over the years the foster father also offered his foster son to others who were sexually interested in the boy. At least three individuals accepted the foster-father’s offer (counted as a homosexual male perpetrator and a boy victim).

29. Los Angeles (7/10/01): An unmarried woman pled no contest to the accusation of sexually abusing her 12 year-old foster daughter, and then lost her foster-care license (counted as a homosexual female perpetrator and a female victim).

30. St. Louis (12/31/01): An unmarried foster father was charged with molesting 2 foster sons, both 13 years old (counted as a homosexual male perpetrator and two boy victims).

Comment: It is noteworthy that in two of the 12 stories involving gays, the homosexual not only molested his foster son, but prostituted him as well. Something seems to be morally ‘wrong’ with homosexuals.

3. Boston (5/18/89): An unmarried man had illicit pictures of boys. Although he had been convicted of child molestation on a boy in 1967 (and given a suspended sentence), starting in 1977 the Massachusetts Probation Department used him as a placement for “24 adolescent males during the past 12 years.”

5. Seattle (8/28/90): An unmarried man, with whom 5 foster children were currently living, admitted to molesting two boys, 14 and 15, in his Scout troop. He had been dishonorably discharged from the Navy for “similar incidents involving young boys.”

6. St. Louis (8/31/90): An unmarried child molester had a 14 year-old boy placed in his home by the Missouri Division of Family Services. The boy’s older brother also lived with the man. The child molester had been convicted of attempted rape of and then stabbing a 12 year-old boy. It is not clear whether he had had sex with the foster boys.

9. Los Angeles (12/29/92): A man and wife lost their foster care license when the man was charged with molesting 2 of his daughters from a previous marriage.

20. Seattle (11/3/98): A unmarried foster parent of a boy was accused of molesting 5 boys. The boys were apparently from a church youth group he assisted.

Comment: Is it a statistical fluke that 3 of the 4 gay foster parents above already had ‘a record of child molestation’ and yet were given boys to foster parent? Perhaps. But the bias that child protective services seem to exhibit in favor of homosexuals offers a more chilling possibility. While the ‘fox’ is not running the henhouse, there appear to be a considerable number of ‘foxes’ in these agencies -- and in the current climate of ceding victimhood status to gays, even the non-foxes are inclined to ‘give homosexuals a second chance.’

14. Los Angeles (5/2/96): For the second time in the year, the state initiated action to revoke the foster home license of Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services because an additional number of boys reported having been molested by male staff members (counted as 3 homosexual male perpetrators and 6 boy victims).

16. Wales, Great Britain (2/4/97): Dozens of staff members at 30 children’s homes sexually abused 180 victims, “most...were boys, some as young as 8.”

27. Los Angeles (8/30/00): At least 3 male counselors raped at least 3 boys and a girl at group homes. One of the perpetrators was single, and at least one boy he raped obtained a judgment against him. There were no follow-on stories about the other perpetrators.

Comment: These stories suggest character flaws inherent to the homosexual lifestyle -- flaws that put children under the care of homosexuals at considerable hazard. Note that although there are a lot of girls in children’s homes, the boys appear to be at special risk. And why was a homosexual social service allowed to run group homes?

A pattern of disproportionate molestation of foster children by those who engage in homosexuality is evident in each of the three sets of stories above. The 22 stories involving molestation of foster children, in particular, bear directly upon whether homosexual or unmarried foster parents commit more sexual offenses against their charges. Of the 22 stories, 15 (68%) involved homosexual molestation. Of the 23 perpetrators, 19 (83%) were men, and 4 (17%) were women. Of the 19 men, 12 (63%) engaged in homosexuality. Three (25%) of these 12 were married, while 9 were single. Seven (37%) of the 19 male perpetrators practiced heterosexuality. Of these 7, at least 5 (71%) were married and at least one was single.

Of the 4 women, 3 engaged in homosexuality and were unmarried. The other was married but her sexual proclivities were not revealed. Overall, of the 22 perpetrators whose marital status was known, 13 (59%) were single.

In the 22 stories, among the 32 foster children who were victimized, at least 12 (38%) were girls and at least 13 (41%) were boys. Since 2.5 of the girls were victimized by females (counting the girl who was victimized by the unmarried man and woman as being 0.5 homosexually and 0.5 heterosexually victimized), altogether, out of the 28 victims of perpetrators where a sexual preference could be determined, 8.5 (30%) were victimized by heterosexuals and 19.5 (70%) by homosexuals. Also, of the 32 children, at least 15 (43%) were victimized by the unmarried.

Undoubtedly, only a fraction of child molestation by foster parents over the 13 years I examined was included in any news stories. If they did ‘make the paper,’ many -- like the molestation of the boy in Vermont in 2002 that led me to conduct this study -- only made the local newspaper, not the newspapers covered by Academic Universe. But there is no reason to believe that this sample was biased against those who engage in homosexuality. Indeed, a number of the newspapers included in Academic Universe have editorialized in favor of special social protections for those who engage in homosexuality (e.g., Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Boston Globe). And these same newspapers have also expressed support for ‘marital status nondiscrimination.’ So they would seemingly little reason to ‘pick on’ gay foster parents.

That at least 15 of the 22 instances of molestation of a foster-child by a foster parent involved those who engaged in homosexuality is sharply at odds with the National Association of Social Workers’ [NASW] 1987 resolution decrying “resistance to using single parents,... including lesbian and gay parents, as potential foster care and adoption resources.” It also flies in the face of the NASW’s appeal to its members to ‘correct’ this ‘injustice.’

The empirical evidence is lined up against the NASW -- of the 21 stories where the sexual proclivities of the perpetrator could be determined, 71% implicated homosexuals! Likewise, at least 57% of the 22 perpetrators were unmarried, and they accounted for at least 47% of the 32 child victims.

Homosexuality was also a disproportionate problem in the other 8 stories. When they are around or ‘in charge’ of kids, homosexuals are far more apt to seek to have sex with them. Nevertheless, we hear a lot from talk show hosts that homosexuals are no more apt to molest kids -- tell that to the children who were victimized in these stories!

These news stories suggest that homosexuals and unmarried individuals are more apt to molest their foster charges. Because of this, they would not seem to be ‘as fit’ foster parents as married heterosexuals. The boy in story number 28, despite being raped, desired to return to live with the perpetrator. So he was apparently willing to ‘live with molestations,’ perhaps because there were other compensatory benefits in the arrangement. However, no matter how ‘great’ a parent they might be otherwise, there is no way someone can be a ‘fit’ foster parent if they sexually abuse their placements.

In a study FRI published earlier this year, interviews with 57 children with gay parents revealed that living in a homosexual home was a trying experience for children. In addition, the largest comparison study done to date -- 58 kids with married parents, 58 kids with cohabiting heterosexual parents, and 58 kids with homosexual parents -- reported that the children with homosexual parents did less well at school, less well socially, and often gave evidence of personal distress. Thus, there is no particular reason to believe that either homosexuals or the unmarried generally compensate for their sexual weaknesses by offering exceptional foster-service in ‘other areas.’

If the welfare of children is regarded as the most important consideration in foster-placement, these findings that the unmarried and those who engage in homosexuality are more likely to sexually molest their foster children suggest that the traditional aversion to their use as foster parents is rational and reasonable. Our society makes a lot of noise about ‘protecting the children’ and ‘for the sake of the children.’ But our foster system -- which may process almost half a million kids every year -- is being run throughout the country according to an alien, anti-child social philosophy.

Organizations like the NASW and many child protective service agencies across the land should lose their federal and state funding, until and unless they quit using kids’ lives as bricks to reinforce unproven assertions that ‘homosexuals are just as good’ or that ‘the unmarried are just as good.’ Kids who need foster care are usually already under considerable stress -- they don’t need social revolutionaries putting them in highly sexually-charged environments.

The following remark is useful in any of many settings. Assuming this is an accurate study:

Shocking! Someone openly embracing perverse immorality practices perverse immorality!

Dan
Biblical Christianity BLOG

Soon thereafter, the men gave the boy a magazine containing depictions of scantily clad men. They told the boy to ‘masturbate to these pictures.’

That is called positive reinforcement. But psychologists today do not accept that positive reinforcement has any impact on sexual behavior as it is their religion that it is all hard-wired.

Homosexual Agenda Pingtime.

I haven't even read this yet, I snuck back on to FR illicitly and should be doing other stuff... but this needs to be read, absorbed, and passed on to others.

FYI, here's another article with a lot of info on the thread, same topic, and another article about causes of homosexuality (high on the list is being molested at a young age):

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1420619/posts
Root Causes, Homosexual Consequences

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1420072/posts
Expert: Many Promote Homosexual Parenting With Poor Reasons, Faulty Premise

The pernicious idea that it's perfectly all right for those with the dysfucntion of same sex attraction disorder to be allowed to adopt children has only been accepted very recently.* It is extremely dangerous, and we should fight it with all our strength, for the sake of the children who will be, and are at this minute, being harmed. Whether they are acutally molested or just psychologically harmed, both are terrible and are easier to avoid than to heal from.

Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.

Now remind me again why the 10 Commandments are so horrible?

*And obviously not by everyone; and I seriously doubt even a large minority think it's okay. But it is being shoved down our throats by a vociferous gay rights crowd - both homosexual activists and their supporters.

Your bogus, threadbare arguments have been dismantled by Scripter and others so many times I'm amazed you have the temerity to bring them up again.

Note to all: Good ol' punster shows up on every thread where Dr. Cameron's name is mentioned and wants (without success) to prove that his research is bogus. Punster just outs himself as a shill each and every time. It's just feeble.

Don't like the message, eh?

I took a break from digging trenches and saw the same old attacks on Cameron that we've seen (and proved baseless) so many times. Apparently his main interest on similar threads is to push the homosexual agenda no matter how many times we prove him wrong.

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