President Obama, in contrast to his opponent Mitt Romney, has taken a firm and decisive stance in favor of gays and lesbians adopting.
"I believe there are too many children who need loving parents to deny one group of people adoption rights. A child will benefit from a healthy, loving home, whether the parents are gay or not," he wrote in response to the Human Rights Campaign 2008 Presidential Questionnaire.
Since then, he has extended the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover same-sex parents who take unpaid leave to care for their children.
In related news, the Obama administration has stepped up its efforts to recruit same-sex partners to become foster care parents.
David Hansell, Acting Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, expressed President Obama's belief that that gay foster care parents shouldn't be discriminated against at the U.S. Department of Education's inaugural Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) youth summit last year. "We're also trying to recruit more foster and adoptive parents who are lesbian and gay," he noted.
Referring to the 400,000 children in the foster care system right now, 120,000 of whom are eligible for permanent adoption, in this CNSNews clip Hansell stressed the need to remove discriminatory barriers that too often prevent the LGBT community from parenting.
In fact, the Obama administration currently has a program in place called Adopt Us Kids . Its aim is to find adoptive homes for hard to place kids, including with gay, lesbian and transgender adults.
Hansell said the Obama administration is working on many fronts -- ranging from training social workers to making publications more "gay-friendly" -- to encourage LGBT families to adopt children.