Conservative Christians and Support for Transracial Adoption as an Alternative to Abortion

Abstract

Objective This study examines whether support for transracial adoption (TRA) among evangelical Protestants and Catholics is uniquely tied to their cultural and political opposition to abortion. Mainline Protestants, persons of other religious faiths, and the religiously unaffiliated are used as comparison groups, and support for same‐sex adoption is used as a comparison issue. Method Data are taken from the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey. I estimate logistic regression models to examine the link between support for TRA and abortion attitudes across all five groups considered, net of relevant sociodemographic and ideological factors. Results For evangelicals and Catholics, opposition to abortion under any circumstance has a positive net effect on their support for TRA. However, opposition to abortion does not predict support for TRA among mainline Protestants, adherents to other religions, or the unaffiliated. Support for same‐sex adoption is a strong predictor of support for TRA across all groups. Conclusion An interesting paradox is thus observed in that evangelicals and Catholics who support TRA are more socially progressive on most other issues (younger, more racially tolerant, support same‐sex adoption), except in their views toward abortion. On this issue, they are more conservative.

Religion and Non‐traditional Families in the United States

“…The connection between religion and interracial families, however, while less obvious than the connection with same‐sex families, is consistent and strong. Recent scholarship has also recognized the important parallels between same‐sex and interracial families, arguing that Americans' views toward such relationships are appropriately studied together (Haider‐Markel and Joslyn ; Perry , ; Rosenfeld ; Rosenfeld and Kim ; Steinbugler ). Building on this notion, we propose that religion relates to both same‐sex and interracial families similarly for several reasons.…”

“…In general, scholars have reported that Protestants are more likely to express disapproval of (often Black‐White) interracial marriage or transracial adoption relative to religious or non‐religious groups (Djamba and Kimuna ; King and Bratter ; Perry ; Rosenfeld ). When religious identities are broken down further, White conservative Protestants or evangelicals are less supportive of interracial marriage (Lichterman et al ; Putnam and Campbell ) or transracial adoption (Perry ) relative to mainline Protestants, Catholics, or the religiously unaffiliated. Perry's (, , ) research on religion and interracial dating and marriage, by contrast, shows that mainline Protestants are less likely than evangelicals to interracially date and that evangelical Protestants are not significantly different in their support for interracial marriage than other religious groups, except for the religiously unaffiliated.…”

“…Whitehead and Perry (2014) point out that this is likely due to the majority of legal controversies surrounding same-sex relationships was about romantic unions of gay and lesbian couples as well as researchers neglecting to distinguish how same-sex adoption is a different type of relationship compared to same-sex marriage. Some studies find that particular religious identities encourage opposition to same-sex adoption (Averett et al 2011;Besen and Zicklin 2007;Perry 2013aPerry , 2014aRyan, Bedard, and Gertz 2004), but more recently, when controlling for various other dimensions of religiosity, identity appears to be much less important (Whitehead and Perry 2014). Various studies find that increasing levels of worship attendance, as an indicator of religious commitment, is significantly associated with more negative views toward same-sex adoption (Lambert et al 2006;Perry 2013aPerry , 2014aWhitehead and Perry 2014).…”

Transracial Adoption, Neoliberalism, and Religion

“…Such critics have also drawn an important connection between neoliberalism and conservative religious groups who have recently mobilized to advocate on behalf of domestic TRA such as conservative Protestants (Briggs, 2012;Joyce, 2013;Perry, 2014). Researchers theorize that, along with other reasons for religious conservatives to support large-scale TRA (infertility, altruism, proselytizing, pro-life commitments), conservative Protestants are often staunch adherents to neoliberal ideology (Emerson & Smith, 2000;Gorski, 2009;Green, 2009;Hackworth, 2012) and are likely influenced by such views to favor TRA as an ostensibly altruistic and color-blind way to rescue racial-minority children from poverty while reducing the number of children and families on the government dole (Briggs, 2012).…”

Perspectives regarding Motivations for Adoption by Christian Adoptive Parents: A Qualitative Study

“…Surprisingly, for example, Google Scholar, PychInfo, and ERIC only produced two specifically-targeted peer-reviewed journal sources when searching a variety of word combinations, such as "adoption" or "adopting" with descriptors such as "Christian" or "Evangelical." Perry (2013) addressed the role that Christians possess in advocating adoption as an alternative to potential abortion, and Reilly and Platz (2003) addressed how some Christian families adopt children with disabilities as a means of helping underserved populations. Consequently, in the current study we seek to begin addressing this gap in the empirical literature.…”