Children deserve chance to be loved
Regarding “Adoption measure will help children” (Point of View, March 17): Hance Dilbeck and the Most Rev. Paul Coakley would have you believe that passing Senate Bill 1140 would make more homes available and help alleviate the child welfare crisis that exists in Oklahoma. Nothing could be further from the truth. No “threat of religious discrimination” has ever forced any adoption agency to close.
Adoption agencies that want to discriminate against potential lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) parents may choose to close rather than to abide by civil laws of nondiscrimination. This is as tragic as it is hypocritical: These agencies are placing a higher priority on their own unfounded biases than they are on the needs of children lacking homes. They are reducing the number of qualified parents, and forcing the children themselves to pay the cost of the agency’s discrimination.
The authors suggest the problem in Oklahoma is that the state doesn’t have enough adoption and foster care agencies to serve the children in state care. This also is not the case. The real problem is that Oklahoma doesn’t have enough qualified parents who are willing to open their homes to these most vulnerable youths.
Dilbeck and Coakley use fear tactics in stating, “We want to avoid in Oklahoma the tragic results of laws passed in places like Massachusetts, Illinois and California,” when in reality, these jurisdictions, including Washington, D.C., have said that if an otherwise qualified family comes to them, adoption and foster care agencies must
Adoption agencies that want to discriminate against potential lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents are placing a higher priority on their own unfounded biases than they are on the needs of children lacking homes.
welcome them, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. As a result of embracing nondiscrimination into their laws, these states have seen no “tragic results.” Instead, adoption and foster care placements have remained steady or improved. By contrast, states that have passed bills similar to SB 1140 have seen their adoption rates worsen. Don’t take my word for it — look it up on the federal government’s website where all states’ foster care numbers are compiled and reported.
The more than 10,000 youth in foster care in Oklahoma (more than 4,300 of whom are waiting to be adopted) deserve every chance to find a loving home. Those who identify as LGBT adopt at a rate four times higher than their non-LGBT peers, and provide foster homes to these vulnerable youth at a rate six times higher than that of their non-LGBT peers. It’s a shame that the authors of the article distorted the truth about SB 1140, furthering baseless discrimination against LGBT people in general.
Instead of turning away this rich pool of otherwise qualified parents, we need to find a way to recruit them into the system and give them a loving home.
Sloan, an Episcopal priest and Oklahoma native, is CEO of New York-based Family Equality Council (www.familyequality.org).