Fridae

The American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) has issued a report on Monday supporting adoption by lesbians and gay men proclaiming that the children of gays and lesbians are no worse off their peers, according to media reports.

The policy, published in the February issue of the academy's medical journal, Paediatrics is the group's first statement on the issue of gay parenting and adoption.

"There's not a single study that shows a disadvantage to being raised in a family where parents are of the same sex," said Dr Ellen Perrin, a professor of paediatrics at Tufts New England Medical Centre.

The report endorsed legal recognition of same-sex adoption parents, as well as parental rights for gay co-parents whose partners have children.

The influential association of paediatricians support laws that allow members of same-sex couples to adopt each other's kids. The 55,000-member association maintains that children of same-sex parents deserve the same protections as any others.

Dr Joseph Hagan Jr, who chaired the committee told the Associated Press: "Denying legal parent status through adoption prevents these children from enjoying the psychological and legal security that comes from having two willing, capable and loving parents."

The AAP has however declined to take a stand on whether gays should adopt kids in the first place. Instead, the paediatricians feel that if one member of a same-sex couple has custody of a child, the other should get it too, Dr Perrin said.

"If they already are parents, they should have the same legal securities that that we afford to all parents," she said.

"It is not a statement supporting gay adoption. It's a statement supporting co-parent adoption."

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The paediatricians' support giving children the right to health benefits from both same-sex parents and the right to child support from both; and want states to guarantee that a second parent's custody rights will be protected if the first parent dies or becomes ill.

Gay adoption remains a divisive issue across the country. The State supreme courts have made gay adoptions, also known as "second-parent" adoptions, legal in Vermont, Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey.

While in 17 other states, including California, lower courts have ruled in favour of gay adoption, according to the Gay and Lesbian Parents Coalition International.

Mississippi and Utah ban adoption by gay couples, while Florida has the strictest law of all -- it forbids any gays or lesbians from adopting children, regardless of whether they're in a couple.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychological Association also support adoption by lesbians and gay men.

Conservative groups have blasted the AAP's statements. The Focus on the Family organisation said the paediatricians are relying on research that is "inconclusive" because the studies are too limited to be valid.

The religious right criticised the AAP. The Rev Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, said: "It's a group of pro-homosexual people who want to further tear down the one-man, one-woman relationship in America."