According to the American Civil Liberties Union 500,000 children are in foster care and over 100, 000 of these children need to be adopted. Last year there was only enough qualified adoptive parents for 20,000. The reason why there so many children in foster is simply because states are turning a lot of good people down. Why these people are getting turned down? Not because they can’t take care of the children but because they are homosexuals. Only 22 states have allowed lesbians and gay men to adopt children. Other states like Florida and New Hampshire have banned gay adoption.A sociologist would look at this from the functionalist paradigm. Within a particular society there is a great deal of consensus about