All across the world, children are standing in line. Unfortunately, it’s not the ice-cream truck they are waiting for. According to the 2002 UNICEF/UNAIDS report, as many as 108 million children are orphan worldwide – many of them orphaned due to war, natural disasters, disease, HIV or simply poverty. Every day, they would stand in the line for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be adopted – to have a life with a family, love, education and with a future. Many of them would return disappointed.

Meanwhile, on the wealthy western side of the globe, thousands of couples are also standing in line, waiting for a child – which they will never have, because their adoption papers has been ruthlessly rejected. It is certainly not due to a lack of children needing adoption, nor is it because the parents broke any law, are sick, poor, or doesn’t like children. In fact most of them are well educated, healthy, sufficiently wealthy and most of all: child-loving adults. So why then do we have so many children not getting a home that they deserve, and the would-be parents a child that they too deserve?

One of the most fundamental ideas in Charles Darwin’s Theory of evolution is the fact that the ultimate goal of every living being is to create offspring – to have a family, to love their children – and we (human) are no exception. Furthermore, the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states that it is every child’s right to have a “human identity”, to have its basic needs covered, to be protected and to have the right to association with both parents. Which I believe can be summarized into five simple words: “To have a loving family”.

And yet there are 108 million children waiting for a home, and tens of thousands of would-be parents not being allowed to give them one, and the reason of that? – because they are gay. Because they love each other and wishes to be able to share this love with their children, just like what Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution described. This is in fact, perhaps the greatest area of discrimination in our “free” society.

There are a number of views when it comes to the gay adoption issue, and often would homosexuals who want to adopt find themselves amidst in an ocean of arguments and prejudices. Among those arguments we have: “To allow gay people have children is to defy the natural order of reproduction”

However, from the way I see it; it doesn’t really matter. Today we live in a society, which we claim to be free and equal. And it doesn’t matter if you are an atheist or a man of god – no human has the right to decide over another human’s life, let alone take away their most basic human instinct and rights – their ability to love a child. And it is also to my strongest belief that if only homosexuals were given their rightful chance; they would prove to be just as good a parent as anybody else.