The Texas House could vote today on a bill that would allow child service providers using public funds to discriminate against LGBT prospective foster and adoptive parents.
The bill is attached as an amendment to a larger bill to reauthorize the Department of Family and Protective Services. That larger bill is on the House schedule for today, reports Equality Texas. They explain:
[The amendment] would allow child welfare providers to discriminate against not just gay and transgender families seeking to provide loving homes for children who need them, but also against people of other faiths, interfaith couples and anyone else to whom a provider objects for religious reasons. This would seriously weaken the state’s child welfare system by further shrinking the pool of qualified parents who can provide a safe, loving home for children.
Moreover, the amendment would expose minors to potential harm, even allowing child welfare service providers to force gay and transgender minors into abusive and discredited reparative “therapy” programs to change their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The bill would allow agencies to discriminate if providing services would conflict with the organization’s “sincerely held religious beliefs.” That might be arguable for a purely private agency, but not for one that takes public funds.
Last week, the Donaldson Adoption Institute (DAI), Voice for Adoption (VFA), and North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) issued a letter to the Texas legislature in strong opposition to the amendment. They note that children with lesbian and gay parents turn out just as well as any others, lesbian and gay parents are often more willing to foster or adopt older and hard-to-place children, and the outcomes are much worse for children who exit foster care without a family. In sum, “Allowing agencies that serve waiting children to discriminate against prospective qualified parents undermines the prospects of Texas’ children being placed with permanent, loving families.”
This is only one of a number of such bills making their way through state legislatures, and only one of 20 pieces of anti-LGBT legislation in Texas alone. If you live in the Lone Star State, contact your state representatives now and tell them to oppose HB 3864 and the other anti-LGBT bills under consideration. No matter where you live, encourage your U.S. senators and representatives to support the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, which would prevent child service agencies receiving federal funds from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or martial status.