Ending Anti-Gay Discrimination in America's Adoption System

If you're an LGBT person or couple, and you're looking to adopt children or take in some foster kids, there's almost no way of getting around the fact that you stand a very good chance of being systematically discriminated against. Why? Because several states, as well as many adoption and foster care agencies that receive state funding, will not place kids in homes where the adoptive parents are LGBT.

Consider it a new take on that tired old religious justification for being homophobic: hate the sin, punish the children.

But there are efforts to try and root out anti-LGBT discrimination from America's adoption system, and it comes in the form of a Congressional bill introduced by Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.). Stark's "Every Child Deserves a Family Act" would use the threat of the government's pocketbook as a means of tearing down discriminatory barriers that LGBT people and couples face in the adoption and foster care process.

Under Stark's Act, it would become illegal for all adoption and foster care agencies that receive government funding to discriminate in their placement decisions. Meaning that if an adoption organization that receives state funding has a beef with placing children in the homes of LGBT people, that agency will no longer receive money with the state's blessing.

“Standards in adoption and foster care should only reflect the child’s best interest, nothing else,” Stark said during a March Congressional panel on his proposed Act. “Too many children need a loving home and we just should not close any doors.”

But closing doors is exactly what happens when a state or an adoption agency decides to stamp out LGBT people from the adoption process. Look no further than places like Arkansas or Florida, where current laws (which are being challenged in court) ban LGBT people from adopting children. The result? Sure, it punishes LGBT people who want nothing more than to be parents. But even worse, it punishes children, who are kept out of a loving home, and kept swirling in the state's adoption and foster care maze. As Stark said, there are just too many children in need of homes to place silly discriminatory barriers on where these kids can be placed.

Perhaps predictably, some religious organizations are flipping out, and they're doing so with a bit of fact manipulation. Take Matt Barber from Liberty Counsel, who said that Stark's legislation was a sign that there are armies of homosexual activists trying to take over the government.

"It's a brave new world, and we've been saying all along that the homosexual lobby intends forced acceptance, compelled affirmation under penalty of law," Barber said. "That is their goal, and this legislation that has been introduced only confirms what many of us have been saying all along."

But of course, Barber only gets it two percent right. The part he's right about is that it is a brave new world -- a world in which, dare we say it, LGBT people can actually imagine having some of the same equal rights afforded to straight people and/or straight couples without the bat of an eye. But the rest of Barber's statement is pretty much just a far right talking point.

Because the goal of Stark's law isn't to force homosexuality on the general population. Far from it. It's instead intended to make lives a little better for children caught in the adoption/foster care system, and allow well-qualified parents, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, the chance to raise kids. It also means getting government money out of organizations with a low tolerance for civil rights.

Around 15 years ago, legislation was passed known as the Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA). In a similar vein, this piece of legislation prevented adoption agencies that receive state funding from using an adoptive parent's race, color or national origin as a means of denying a child's placement. If states or state-funded agencies can't discriminate on the basis of race, why should they be allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity? Especially since every professional study by a non-religiously-associated entity demonstrates that LGBT parents raise children who turn out to be just as healthy and well-adjusted as children raised by straight parents.

A homosexual agenda? The only agenda here is making the adoption process fairer, and giving children the best opportunities possible for a good, loving home. Now who could take issue with that?

Photo credit: alex_lee2001