When you send your son overseas through an exchange program for cultural enrichment, you don’t expect him to be adopted by a homosexual couple and never return home. But that’s exactly what is happening in the case of one Russian boy who was visiting the U.S. — over the protests of his own mother. Reports the Daily Mail:
[T]he Russian government claims the boy was ‘illegally’ put up for adoption….
Russian diplomats had visited the boy, and found that the 17-year-old was ‘seduced’ by ‘a pair of old homosexuals at church, former military men who had already adopted two American boys, and they offered to become his sponsor and even pay for his studies at Harvard University’.
It was at this point that the boy handed himself over to immigration authorities, seeking asylum.
… Russia’s children’s commissioner Pavel Astakhov said …’The child hails from a decent family and is healthy so it’s unclear what arguments those in the United States have been guided by.’
The student was scheduled to return to Russia in the spring, but now it appears he may not see his homeland again for a very, very long time. While his mother visited him in Michigan earlier this year in an attempt to bring him home, her efforts were in vain.
And this isn’t the first time students visiting the U.S. through the program — called The Future Leaders Exchange Program (FLEX) — have decided, or perhaps been convinced, to stay in the U.S. But it will be the last time: The Kremlin has now canceled FLEX.
Alluding to this and complaining about the violation of parental rights, “Konstantin Dolgov, from the Kremlin’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said: ‘An unacceptable situation emerged as a result, when our [Russian] school students were in fact subjected to the legislature of American states, where minors were able to choose on their own and without their parents’ permission their place for living or being adopted’,” reported the Daily Mail.
Not surprisingly, the 17-year-old boy’s attorney, Susan Reed of the left-wing Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, claimed that the Russians were “mischaracterizing” the situation. She refused to elaborate, however.
Some say the student sought asylum due to Russia’s 2013 enactment of laws banning pro-homosexual propaganda. But whether or not this is true, critics would note the boy is not of the age of emancipation (18), cannot legally enter into contracts, and thus should still be under his parents’ authority. They might ask: Is this a matter of political correctness trumping parental rights?
As for the Russian government, the FLEX axing isn’t the first time it has canceled a program based on what it views as moral correctness. In 2012, for instance, the Kremlin prohibited the adoption of Russian children by Americans and those in other countries that recognize what some call same-sex marriage.
This reflects a deep discomfort over homosexual adoption felt by many around the world. And such critics might point to cases such as that of former associate director of Duke University’s Center for Health Policy Frank Lombard, a prominent “gay activist” who was sentenced to 27 years in prison in 2010 on charges of sexually abusing his five-year-old adopted black son. ABC News reported on the story’s sordid details prior to the conviction, writing:
[An] informant described in graphic detail how he allegedly observed Lombard molesting an African-American child on four occasions over an Internet video chat service called ICUii.
The informant said, according to court papers, that Lombard, who is white, said that he lived in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina and that the child was one of two adopted African-Americans in his custody.
… Lombard allegedly used the adult Internet service to conduct his video chats. According to an affidavit in support of the arrest warrant, the Internet service indicated that Lombard’s profile “stated he was interested in ‘perv fam fun,’ a reference to “incestuous child molestation.”
Town Hall’s Mike Adams provided some more details, writing, “Lombard is accused of logging on to a chat room online and describing himself as a ‘perv dad for fun.’ The detective who wisely looked into the suspicious screen name says that Lombard admitted to molesting his own adopted son. All this was before allegedly inviting a stranger to travel to North Carolina from another state to statutorily rape his already-molested adopted son.”
Lombard also routinely drugged the boy in an effort to prevent others from learning of the abuse.
Of course, while there’s a great difference between a five-year-old and a 17-year-old, there is a similarity: Both are minors under the law. And the age of emancipation exists partially because minors can often be manipulated and taken advantage of by adults.
As to whether or not the young are more likely to be taken advantage of by homosexuals, that’s an issue around which swirls great debate. But critics of homosexual adoption will frequently cite data showing that, as the Family Research Council reported in 2002, “[h]omosexuals are overrepresented in child sex offenses: Individuals from the 1 to 3 percent of the population that is sexually attracted to the same sex are committing up to one-third of the sex crimes against children.”
