John Key has signalled his support for same-sex adoption, in his usual wishy-washy "support to first reading" leaving-room-to-back-out-if-the-bigots-give-him-money way. Which is good, or at least better than his previous "we're fixing the economy, we've got no time for it (and no we can't walk and chew gum at the same time)" bullshit. At the same time, he completely misses the point of a law change:
However, the problem was there were not enough babies to adopt.Same-sex adoption isn't so much about allowing gay couples to adopt random children - its about them being able to be legal parents to their own kids. This is a question of basic parenting rights, and its appalling that we leave people in this legal black hole. A decent government would commit to fixing it as quickly as possible, not leave it for a member's bill which may or may not be drawn from the ballot."There was less than 100 or 200 non-family adoptions last year. Because we have the domestic purposes benefit and we have a policy or try to have kids looked after by family members, there is very few adoptions available. We can have a debate over whether gay people should adopt or not, but really it's a very small group."
Key said he had "great sympathy" for people who wanted to adopt but couldn't.
