Tuesday, March 12, 2002

The Swedish government (link in Swedish only, sorry) has recommended to parliament that homosexual persons, such as myself, be allowed to adopt children. Parliament has until June 4 to respond to the government's proposal.

The biggest hitch is that the vast majority of adopted children are from outside Sweden and none of the countries Sweden has agreements with allow gay men or lesbians to adopt children (Liberal attitudes toward abortion are apparently one of the main reasons so few children are in need of adoption within Sweden.)

But what's great about it is that once Sweden decides this, homosexual persons who decide to adopt children, such as myself or Aaron, will get all the same fantastic rights and privileges that other parents get here in Sweden - mainly a year and a half off of work at 80-90 percent pay, and universal daycare.

And now, it looks like the United Kingdom is likely to approve gay adoptions as well.

The Swedish verb for the day is att orka. It's one of my favorites. It isn't directly translateable, but more less means to have the will to, and is more often used in the negative - jag orkar inte - which would mean I can't get up the energy to... or something like that. My friend D., the editor who moved back to America this past summer, used to say "I don't have the ork for it."

- by Francis S.

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