People, you've all made some very good points here. Thank you.

I know my "imaginings" depict a worst-case scenario - that's what I intended though. That "worst-case scenario" is based on a lifetime of experience (including my own as a very young teen) with homosexuals and bisexuals kids and adults, as well as with people who have or procure kids for very questionable reasons.

I have never yet personally known a gay person who adopted or otherwise procured a child. But I have known so many sickly, unhappy, socially "handicapped" homosexuals and bisexuals. :-( The truth is, I've only known one pair of homosexuals who seemed happy and healthy and to really love each other - and even that pair split up about 6 months after I met them. That was 2 years ago, and they've each been in and out of a few new relationships since.

And over the years they've lost their gay friends to AIDS on a regular basis. One gay I know right now is 20 years old, and so far he's watched 3 of his friends - including one of his (many) partners - die of AIDS. He's skinny and sickly and set upon, wears the same clothes every day for months, has a grade 9 education and works at a minimum-wage job, asks me to help him with HUNA healing methods for his "rectal rips" quite often (which I do), still benefits from being (gently) reminded to shower and even to feed himself.

He keeps telling me he's gonna marry his 22 year old boyfriend in a couple months, and they want LOTS of kids! When he talks like that, I just get filled with dread and clam right up.

What can I say? He's got the "right"! And what's wrong with me that I can't wholeheartedly celebrate his plans? Must be bigotry, I guess.

Bigot that I am, in all honesty I would entrust NONE of the gay or bisexual people I've known with a child. I'm glad some of you have known others who are more capable and well-adjusted.

I have known miserable teenage girls in foster homes, where the parents WERE only out for the money, and the kids were being sexually interfered with on a regular basis by older male members of that foster family. :-(

I have known a crack-addicted alcoholic couple who made sure they popped a new (dirty and neglected) kid out every 4-5 years so they could stay on the dole (and no I'm not kidding or exaggerating - that's what they told me, and I watched it happen).

I have known a 4-week old infant who died of overexposure and neglect, because it's 16-yr single mother would "forget" to feed it, dress it up like a new dolly instead and stroll it all over town in 30 below weather, to show it off to her friends at the various high schools. This girl had the baby because she wanted to quit school, get out of her parent's house and go on social benefits. She spent her welfare cheques on a fur coat, leather boots and partying, and that baby was sleeping on a blanket on the concrete floor in her basement apartment - in February.

She took that baby home without anyone saying "boo", no public health people had ever been in to check on her or the baby (even though they knew she was only 16 and alone), and when it died the coroner simply marked "crib death" on the death certificate. No autopsy was ever done - and truthfully, no-one really cared.

The girl and her family were oh-so-proud of the baby's pretty funeral dress, showing off the pictures of the funeral to everyone who would look. I still feel sick and wanna go strangle more than a few STUPID PEOPLE when I think about it ... pardon me for sounding so un-loving. *sigh*

So yes, I have seen kids procured only for "parental self-gratification" reasons, and suffer and die becuase of it. I'm sorry if it seems so unreasonable that I would imagine that gay people might be much the same as straight people when it comes to reasons for wanting a baby, or that the "gay factor" would most likely make such a situation even worse for the child. (I don't mean ALL straight or gay people, of course, but as far as I'm concerned putting even ONE child at risk is too much).

But maybe my "bigotry and prejudice" is talking again, I don;t know. THe 20yr old gay friend I told you about above has really put me on the spot a few times over the last month or so. I've been trying very hard to sort out my thoughts and feelings about this so I can keep looking him in the eye. I do really like him, he's a musician and really quite brilliant - an exceptional young man in many ways.

I'm finding this very difficult :-( so thank you all for your ideas and opinions. He's really the reason I started posting on this thread in the first place.

daylia