The Flemish NGO Kind en Gezin (Child and Family) has published figures that show that more than 50 % of the applications for adoption in Flanders came from gay or lesbian couples. A total of 577 adoption requests were filed and 294 of those were by lesbians and gays. The majority were lesbian couples who wanted to make the partner an official mother of the child(ren) of an earlier relationship of the other partner. Otherwise put: most adoptions have as main purpose to regularize an existing situation. This brings more protection for the child in case something happens with its previous single parent.
Gays can adopt since July 2006, so it is to be expected that the figures will drop once most gay families have regularized their situation. Adoption of foreign babies by gay couples is less frequent. A lot of third world countries don't want the children they put up for adoption to go to gay couples. It seems they think those children are better of in an orphanage or living on the streets than being lovingly cared for by parents of the same sex. The victims of this incomprehensible and backward mentality are of course not so much the gay couples whose opportunities to adopt are restricted, but the children whose future is jeopardized by this bigotry.

So what are the conclusions one can draw from the report the Iraqi Study Group presented yesterday?

• “America is not winning the war”. Well, that is putting it very mildly. In fact, America is loosing this war at an alarming rate, with a daily loss of Iraqi and American lives, money and American prestige. Iraq is confronted with a civil war which, from the perspective of the American troops, takes the form of an urban guerrilla. And like in all such conflicts the rule holds true that a regular army that isn't winning is in fact loosing and rebel forces that aren't completely vanquished are in fact winning.
• “No one can guarantee that any course of action in Iraq at this point will stop the sectarian warfare, growing violence or a slide toward chaos”.  America has instigated this conflict and then mismanaged it from day one. The result is a horrible mess that America alone can't clean up anymore, so let's spread it around by involving neighboring countries, even if they are regimes as nasty as that of Saddam Houssein. Then let's gradually shirk our responsibility and hope nobody notices.
• “America's other security needs and the future of our military cannot be made hostage to the actions or inactions of the Iraqi government”.  As good as a confession that America couldn't intervene effectively if a real emergency were to present itself. No wonder Iran and North Korea are laughing in the face of the country that would like to see itself as the last remaining superpower.