3% Of Uk Lesbians And Gay Men Intend To Adopt In Next 5 Years

Research released Sunday shows the extent of UK lesbians and gay men wanting to adopt children.

Regulations enabling the Northern Ireland provisions of The Equality Act 2006 passed the House of Lords in Westminster two weeks ago. Debate is reportedly taking place in the UK Cabinet about whether to exempt the Catholic Church from the operation of similar regulations being considered for England and Wales later this year.

Three percent of lesbians and three percent of gay men who responded to the “Out Now Diva and Gay Times Readers Surveys” stated that they intend to adopt children during the next five years.

A further five percent of gay men intend to father a child themselves, and 18 percent of lesbians plan to have children by giving birth.

One in five lesbians (20 percent) are already mothers and 11 percent of gay male respondents indicated that they are already fathers.

Findings of the “Out Now Diva and Gay Times Readers Surveys” also reveal that more than 135,000 British lesbians and gay men were refused goods or services last year because they are gay.

“This is the first time these issues have been measured in the UK,” says Ian Johnson, managing director of Out Now Consulting–a specialist gay marketing consultancy that undertook the research. “We believe UK society in general needs to regard such discrimination as unacceptable for these new regulations to make a significant impact.”

“These survey results show that far too many UK lesbians and gay men know about the hard edge of the discrimination that has led to the enactment of this new legislation,” according to Kim Watson, Deputy Managing Director at MPG–publisher of Diva and Gay Times magazines.

Official UK government Whitehall figures put the total number of gay and lesbian people in the UK at 6 percent of the total adult population, or 3 million people.