Just a few years ago, most children grew up in a "traditional" or "nuclear" family, which refers to the conjugal household consisting of a husband, a wife, and their dependent children, whose relationships are traditionally recognized by the American family law. Yet, in today's society, fewer and fewer American households are daresay "traditional" families. The constant societal changes have brought about the rise of "alternative" or "nontraditional" families, many of which include group living, unmarried cohabitation and single-parent families---all of which are mutually interdependent households, but not recognized as so by the American family law. As part of these "alternative" or "nontraditional" families, in the past decade we have begun to see a sharp rise in the number of lesbian and gay men forming their own families through adoption, foster care, artificial insemination and other means. So why are lesbians and gays still being repressed? Why are they being denied the right to adopt? Why is it that there are still countless states across the United States who however hold very stringent laws regarding lesbians, gays and adoption? Living in a society like the one we live in to

In evaluating yet another myth, one is taken back to the days when one was growing up and picked on by others in grade school. Many believe that a child's peers would subject a child raised in a gay home to constant harassment and guaranteed rejection. It may deem possible, but each and every day thousands of children across the country are picked on by others, for either being too fat or too thin or for simply being viewed and labeled as different by others. We cannot live in fear of what might be, in a society where one is free to choose and protected by laws, there need not be that constant fear of disapproval. Fact is, if a child is raised in a loving and stable environment, resilience to such ignorance will prevail and the support and acceptance known to them since childhood would be of mass usage in preparation of life, in a world that can at times be hostile.

Amongst the present myths is that the only acceptable home for a child is one with a mother and a father who are married to each other, but gay parenting coincides with a much broader reconfiguration of households and kinship. "The definition of family has been changing at an exponential pace, and you better believe the change is not just about gay people," says Pepper Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle. "More heterosexuals are having children through surrogates, there are more children of divorced parents, and there are single moms and dads than ever before. The public is in the process of realizing that family is not its structure-it's what you make of it as long as there is a lifetime commitment to the children." Fact being that those children without homes do not have an option of choosing between a married mother and father or some type of parent(s). These innocent children have neither a mother nor a father, married or unmarried. They are simply caught up in a world of constant change, where nothing in their life is stable, and no guarantees and promised can be made. There are simply not enough married mothers and fathers who are interested in adoption or in the foster care system. In recent polls conducted by The Family Adoption Society, statistics proved the harsh reality of adoption in the United States-one out of every ten married couples would consider adoption as an option. With such low numbers who would even consider adoption, it is no surprise why other statistics show that in any given year only 20 percent of those foster children in need of adoption will actually be adopted (Kantrowitz 26). Therefore it becomes crucial that policies change in order to facilitate the needs of these children, innocent children whose sole desire is to find a stable and loving home.

Through the chaos of myths and stereotypes, gays have come a long way at battling a society that can at times be cruel, insensitive and intolerant. Amongst the myths and stereotypes is the present notion that lesbians and gay men are

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Approximate Word count = 1993
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)