A lesbian who wants to become a foster parent for a child in a taxpayer-funded program for unaccompanied refugee children was unable to do so because the government is working through an agency that discriminates against LGBTQ people. Now she’s suing.
In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has just ruled in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia in favor of a faith-based foster care agency that refused to contract with same-sex parents. While this is not the win we might have wanted, it is a narrow loss that one LGBTQ legal expert is still calling “a huge victory.”
A federal bill has just been reintroduced that would prohibit discrimination in foster care and adoption on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or religion. The John Lewis Every Child Deserves a Family Act (ECDF) is named for the civil rights leader and congressman who was an original co-sponsor the previous six times the bill was introduced. Might it pass this seventh time through Congress?
President Biden’s proclamation of May as National Foster Care Month returns to the inclusion begun by President Obama, with a mention of LGBTQ youth in foster care—and a reminder of the challenges that remain to bring equity and justice to our foster care system.
Bethany Christian Services, the largest Protestant adoption and foster care agency in the U.S., announced yesterday that it will begin placing children with LGBTQ parents nationwide, reports the New York Times.
Did you know that in the 1970s, queer social workers were quietly placing queer youth with queer foster parents, in defiance of state laws? They were “were creating something radical: state-supported queer families in an era of intense discrimination,” asserts a fascinating new article on the subject.
After a lawsuit brought by LGBTQ organizations and a foster youth and alumni group, the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has agreed to delay implementing a Trump-era rule that would have allowed taxpayer-funded foster care and adoption agencies and other health and social service organizations to discriminate against LGBTQ people and others. This will allow the administration time to review the rule and potentially change or nullify it.
Not letting a little thing like insurrection stop them, the Trump administration on Thursday finalized a rule that will allow foster care and adoption agencies, along with other public health and social service organizations receiving taxpayer funds, to discriminate against LGBTQ people and others.
The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering a case that could let taxpayer-funded adoption and foster care agencies around the country use their religious beliefs as a reason to discriminate against LGBTQ people and others. New research from the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) shows the widespread impact that could have on children in care.
Even as we have been waiting for the results of the presidential election, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case yesterday that will determine whether taxpayer-funded foster care and adoption agencies—and possibly any provider of government-contracted services—can cite religious beliefs as a reason to discriminate against LGBTQ people and others. Here are some of the arguments made.
