The quickness with which the nanny state is ramping up lately is cause for great alarm.   Suddenly every little thing has to be regulated, you know, for yours and the children’s supposed safety.   Adoption apparently is no exception.   I had heard of states refusing to adopt children to homes that had firearms (which presupposes that anyone with a firearm must be irresponsible with it).   However, I hadn’t heard of a state refusing to adopt to a family with “pit bulls”…that is, until now.  

Jimmy and Amanda Hollowood of Griffin, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, were denied their dream of adopting children simply because they owned a “pit bull” mixed breed.   They took 27 hours of classes, had physicals, and complied with mountains of paperwork.   They had everything ready to go — bedrooms, clothes, a crib — yet they were denied because of the breed of their dog.  

I will argue the absurdity of denying a needy child, or many needy children, a loving home simply because of breedism, but at the outset, doesn’t it appear rather ridiculous and even cruel that the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services (DFACS) didn’t just outright deny them the right to adopt since DFACS certainly knew early on what kind of dog the Hollowoods had?  

Amanda Hollowood concluded the same arguing,

“That’s what really made me upset is that they’ve been out to the house. We even did a thing, a pictorial about the animals at our house,” said Hollowood. “Everybody has seen the photos of him, you know, they asked for the paperwork, and of course his breed’s on the paperwork…”

Indeed, why make this poor couple, who were unable to have children any other way, jump through all these hoops when DFACS must’ve initially known that this couple had a mixed-breed “pit bull”?   If I saw a couple who had an adopted mixed-breed “pit bull” I would think they would make perfectly loving and understanding parents.   I wouldn’t think less of them and make them undergo a grueling process all so I could deny them their dream of adopting.  

And yes, denying a needy child a home because of a “breed” of dog is a terrible form of prejudice that we in the dog lobby have come to refer to as “breedism.”   It’s like racism in that it’s prejudice born of ignorance and unfounded fear.  

Worse, what kind of example does this set for a child?   It’s bad enough that if a needy child finds a home, their loving mother and father can’t defend them from intruders with a firearm, or possibly even a metal bat since aren’t those restricted in some places now too?   But now needy children are denied a home because of prejudice over some of the most loving family dogs there are.   In fact, having owned American Staffordshire Terriers and American Pit Bull Terriers my whole life, I have never seen breeds of dog take to children so readily and so naturally.   I couldn’t have imagined my childhood without these dogs.

Additionally, with breed-specific legislation (BSL) well known to be ineffective and discriminatory (to both the dogs and often their minority owners), I’m left to wonder what’s really going on here.   Did DFACS just not want to give up their pharmaceutical guinea pigs so they just came up with every excuse under the sun not to place these kids in homes?   No, it’s not absurd.   I looked into fostering/adopting once and was amazed that every one of the children I looked at was on an ADHD drug.   Really?   Every kid had ADHD?   Or is this just how the state controls them, or experiments on them, while big pharmaceutical companies reap the windfall?   And yes, pharmaceutical companies do test their drugs on wards of the state.

Of course I can’t say that the state of Georgia is refusing to adopt out children to perfectly loving homes like the Hollowoods’ simply because the state wants to hang on to their pharmaceutical guinea pigs, but it’s not altogether implausible either.   And yes, if true, that is sick, sick, sick.   It’s likewise hypocritical that states refuse to adopt children to homes with firearms or so-called “pit bulls” under the guise of supposed safety considering how often children are physically, sexually, and psychologically abused in orphanages and foster homes.