Mar 2nd, 2006
Half a million kids need parents: Step up or Shut up
USA Today published some letters to the editor in response to last week’s front page article about all the ridiculous proposals to ban gay people from adopting/fostering in an astonishing 16 states.
All three letters that ran were supportive of gay people adopting. Of course papers can’t run every letter they get, so thanks to everyone who took the time to write a letter to USA Today, even if it wasn’t published. Keep writing those letters, both nationally and locally! It matters that fair-minded people speak out to counter the fear-based rhetoric of the ultra conservatives.
I especially want to extend my gratitude to letter-writer Wray Rives of Texas, winner of today’s Damn Straight Say-It-With-Sass Award:
USA TODAY’s story says there are about 520,000 kids in foster care in the United States. It also states that the organization of the Rev. Russell Johnson, who opposes gay adoptions, “plans to tout the adoption ban in a mailing” to 500,000 supporters. Maybe his supporters who are qualified could agree to become a foster parent or adopt a “hard to place” child.
And surely there are enough people from Focus on the Family or Concerned Women for America who could make up the balance of foster homes that would still be needed.
The prize? A signed copy of my book. Just send me your mailing address.
If you care about this issue, you need to be aware that probable presidential candidate, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, has recently shown that he does not support adoptions by gay families. Just last week, he publicly supported a proposal by Catholic bishops to allow Catholic social service orgs in Massachusetts to refuse on religious grounds to place kids that are up for adoption with gay couples.
(See article.)
I appreciate this effort… there’s a bill in Ohio that will literally wipe our family out if it succeeds, because we need to switch our custody from temporary to permanent adoption in about a year or so in order to legally keep our child in school. I’m going to try to get a statement from his teacher about what a disaster that would be for him, and present it to my state legislator.