When it comes to adopting a child, Brits feel that age and lifestyle habits should be much more damaging to an individual’s case than their race, religion, income or sexuality, our poll has found. We gave respondents a list of groups in society and then asked them to judge whether each should be allowed to adopt or not.
- From our list, people over the age of 50 (46% should be allowed, 33% not), the age of 60 (16% allowed, 64% not) and smokers (44% allowed, 35% not) were the least favoured groups
- People on low incomes (53% allowed, 26% not), single people (53% allowed, 33% not) and homosexual couples (53% allowed, 34% not) came next
- The most favoured groups from our list were couples from a different racial background to that of the child (77% allowed, 11% not), unmarried couples (73% allowed, 17% not) and couples from a different religion to the child (65% allowed, 14% not)
Adoption as a means of ‘having’ children has been high on the media agenda recently after Elton John and his partner David Furnish were the latest of a series of celebrities to attempt to adopt a child. Although the couple were unsuccessful in their recent bid to adopt Ukrainian orphan, Lev, due to John’s age (he turns 64 this March; Furnish is 48), they have recently had a child through surrogacy.
