More than one in five UK lesbians and one in ten gay men are already parents and 3 percent would like to adopt children during the next five years, new research shows.Three percent of lesbians and gay men who responded to the 'Out Now Diva and Gay Times Readers Surveys' stated that they intend to seek adoption of children during the next 5 years.
A further 5 percent of gay men intend to father a child themselves, and 18 percent of lesbians plan on giving birth.
Regulations enabling the Northern Ireland provisions of The Equality Act 2006, which bans discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services on the basis of sexual orientation in a similar way to rules on sex and race discrimination, passed the House of Lords in Westminster two weeks ago.
Debate is reportedly taking place in the UK Cabinet about whether to to allow Catholic adoption agencies to turn away same-sex couples. Child adoption is shaping up as a key battleground on the new government regulations.
Tony Blair and Communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, a devout Catholic and member of the Opus Dei sect, are thought to be in favour of exempting the church.
Many other cabinet ministers are reportedly opposed to this, as is the Scottish parliament which recently passed its own laws allowing for gay adoptions.
One in five lesbians (20 percent) are already mothers and 11 percent of gay male respondents indicated that they are already fathers.
Findings in the survey also reveal that more than 135,000 British lesbians and gay men were refused goods or services last year because of their sexuality.
"This is the first time these issues have been measured in the UK," says Ian Johnson, managing director of Out Now Consulting, the 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 on these issues. Of course not all those intending adoption will eventually do so, but 3% say that that is their current intention."
"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.