BREAKING NEWS - Gay people in Malta have been adopting children for years, and the earth never stopped rotating on its own axis.

Adoption by gay people has been legal forever and a day, and as far as we know (which is as far as we should speculate), none of the adopted children have suffered or are suffering because they happen to have two mummies.

So, if children can, and have been adopted by gay people in the past, what’s the big deal now?  

What’s the difference between what’s been happening in the past and what is being proposed for the future?

In essence, here’s what the big deal is about:

To date, whenever a gay person wanted to adopt a child, they were constrained to do this as a single entity, i.e. there could only be one name on the adoption application.

Being gay did not exclude them from being considered as adoptive parents, but if they happened to be in relationship, no matter how stable and for how long, they were advised to leave their partner out of the adoption picture and to hide it from the adoption board.

This meant that as they went through the rigorous adoption screening (which will remain), most lied, did not mention their partners, and got on with doing what they had to do to beat the blatant discrimination.

Once they were matched with a child and brought them home, most of adoptive parents would allow a few months to go by, then come clean about their relationship and sexual orientation with their social workers. And for the most part, life would go on as usual.

What was wrong with this?

• The screening did not take into consideration the partner, which is ridiculous given that it was very likely that the child would be spending as much time with them as they would with parent on the application form.
• Whilst both partners shared financial, social and living responsibilities, the law only recognized one parent (the one on the application), so if the relationship broke up, the non-legal parent could lose all access to the child and would have no way of fighting this.
• Without an overriding will, should something happen to the legal adoptive parent, the other parent would not be recognized as next of kin.

So, what will change if the bill goes through?

• It will become possible for potential adoptive parents to apply as a couple, so the screening process would look at both partners and not just one. Clearly, if we’re after the interest of the child, there’s no other way but this way.
• As a result of the couple applying together, both partners would be legally recognised as parents, so should the relationship go south, the child’s custody would be sorted out like any other relationship.
• c. And finally, if one of the adoptive parents passes away, the other parent will automatically take over the child’s upbringing in every sense.

As far as I can tell, the new legislation will only make the screening more rigorous, the relationship with the child more stable with both parents, and therefore overall more in the interest of the children. This is why I don’t see why we need more research, and why we need to drag our feet even more.  

When gay adoptions have been going on for so long with no known adverse consequences, not only in Malta but also everywhere around the world, what’s the big deal with normalising the process?  What’s wrong with ironing out the bumps not to have people lying through their teeth just to be treated like everyone else regardless of their sexual orientation?