Gay Rights:Gay Rights HomepageView Topics View PetitionsStart a Petition What National Adoption Day Means for LGBT Rights

Today is National Adoption Day, a day "to raise awareness of the 123,000 children in foster care waiting to find permanent, loving families." Many of those families include LGBT parents.

This year, we can celebrate that the more than 19,000 children in foster care in Florida now have a greater chance of being placed with a permanent family, now that the state has overturned its ban on adoption by gay men and lesbians. The Sunshine State had the harshest anti-gay adoption law in the country, and we can all rejoice in its demise.

Mississippi, however, still bans same-sex couples from adopting, and Arkansas, Michigan, and Utah ban unmarried couples (by definition, all same-sex couples in the state).

And because today is also the Transgender Day of Remembrance, I should note that while no state bans people from adopting because of their gender identity, biases exist that may still hinder the process. (The Human Rights Campaign offers some tips for transgender people wanting to adopt.)

We can push for change on a state-by-state basis, but we can also push for the federal Every Child Deserves a Family Act (H.R. 4806), sponsored by U.S. Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.). The Act would prohibit states from discriminating in the placement of foster and adoptive children on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. It would cut off federal funding for any entity involved in adoption or foster care that so discriminates.

Yes, it is probably too late in this session of Congress to move the bill, which remains in committee, but we can express our support in the hope that it doesn't get forgotten next year.
by Dana Rudolph

Photo credit: Chris Darling