Connect with us

Politics

Gillibrand to reintroduce adoption anti-discrimination bill

Every Child Deserves a Family Act would restrict federal funds for anti-gay agencies

Published

on

Kirsten Gillibrand, New York, Democratic Party, United States Senate, gay news, Washington Blade, Every Child Deserves a Family Act, Martin Gill, adoption, foster care
Kirsten Gillibrand, New York, Democratic Party, United States Senate, gay news, Washington Blade, Every Child Deserves a Family Act, Martin Gill, adoption, foster care, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican Party, Florida, United States House of Representatives

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) announces plans to reintroduce the Every Child Deserves a Family Act (Washington Blade photo by Damien Salas)

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is leading a group of lawmakers in the House and Senate who are preparing to introduce legislation that would prohibit bias in adoption services against gay couples seeking to adopt.

The legislation, known as the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, would restrict federal funds for public child welfare agencies if they have laws or practices allowing for discrimination in adoption on the basis of marital status, sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill would also prohibit discrimination against LGBT children seeking families.

Gillibrand emphasized the importance of the legislation on Tuesday during a news conference on Capitol Hill as a means to ensure LGBT families seeking to adopt can do so without fear of anti-gay bias.

As Gillibrand noted, no state laws protect LGBT families seeking to adopt in more than 30 states, although six states ā€” California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Oregon ā€” explicitly ban discrimination in adoption based on sexual orientation.

“This patchwork of state laws often lead our children across the children across the country without the opportunity for a safe home and loving parents,” Gillibrand said. “Meanwhile, there’s an untapped pool of 2 million LGBT people, people who are willing to become adoptive or foster parents, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA.”

According to Gillibrand’s office, an estimated 400,000 children in the U.S. foster care system nationwide, and more than 104,000 children are currently waiting to be adopted, including 6,400 in New York.

Kirsten Gillibrand, New York, Democratic Party, United States Senate, gay news, Washington Blade, Every Child Deserves a Family Act, Martin Gill, adoption, foster care, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Republican Party, Florida, United States House of Representatives, John Lewis, Georgia

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) speaks at news conference against anti-gay bias in adoption (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

In the House, the lead sponsor of the legislation is Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a leader in the 1960’s black civil rights movement, who’s taking over the bill along with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) now that its former patron, former Rep. Pete Stark, has retired from Congress.

“I’ve fought too long and too hard against discrimination of every kind not to serve as a champion for this bill,” Lewis said. “Foster children are innocent bystanders when troubled families crash and burn. The foster care system does it best to rescue these little babies from the flames of abuse ā€” neglect, drug addiction, domestic violence and some of societies worse problems.”

Among the chief LGBT organizations behind the legislation is the Family Equality Council. Emily Hecht-McGowan, the Family Equality Council’s, director of public policy, issued a statement saying the bill is important to find loving homes for children.

ā€œOur country has an obligation to care for its most vulnerable children, and we can do better for the 104,000 youth in foster care who are searching for a home,” Hecht-McGowan said. “The time has come to fix the patchwork of adoption and foster care laws across the country and ensure that young people in care have every opportunity to find a forever home.ā€

The legislation wasn’t introduced on the same day as the news conference. Steve Majors, a spokesperson for the Family Equality Council, said a “Dear Colleague” letter went out on Tuesday asking lawmakers to sign on in support of the bill in anticipation of introduction at later date.

Speaking with the Washington Blade after the news conference, Gillibrand said the first step in the process to guiding the legislation toward passage this year is building co-sponsorship for the bill ā€” particularly finding a lead GOP co-sponsor in the Senate.

“Right now, we’re working on co-sponsors,” Gillibrand said. “We’ll be working across the aisle to find a lead Republican, and hopefully then garner a broad base of support within the Senate, and then we’ll move forward in the Senate and move forward in the House and try to get this passed this year.”

Asked whether she’s spoken to Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who recently came out in favor of marriage equality after learning his son is gay, about the legislation, Gillibrand replied, “We’re still working on it.”

As noted by The Huffington Post, one potential supporter for the legislation in the House could be Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who said during a town hall that he supports adoption rights for gay couples, although he continues to oppose same-sex marriage.

“I do believe that if there are children who are orphans who do have a loving person or couple ā€” I think if a person wants to love and raise a child they ought to be able to do that. Period. I would vote that way,” Ryan said.

Ryan’s office didn’t immediately respond to the Blade’s request to comment on whether he’d support the Every Child Deserves a Family Act.

During the news conference, a number of gay people and their children spoke out about the importance that adoption has meant for their families. Among them was Martin Gill, a gay foster dad, and his eight-year-old son, Nathaniel, who spoke publicly at the news conference for the first time.

Gill filed a lawsuit against Florida to allow him to adopt Nathaniel and his brother. That challenge led the state in 2010 to stop enforcing its 33-year-old law prohibiting openly gay people from adopting.

“It was not so much the fact that we were going to be discriminated against; it was the fact that they were going to split two young brothers up that had always been together, that had come together into our home, that by the time of our adoption, had been with us for six years at the time of our adoption,” Gill said. “That’s what really led to our journey. That’s something that no foster children should have to go through; it’s also something that no adoptive parent should have to go through.”

Also at the news conference was Mary Keane, a lesbian New York City resident and retired health care consultant, used her savings to buy a 12-bedroom house and intended it to become a safe-haven for LGBT teens rejected by their families. Instead, she became a foster mother for troubled adolescents. Keane has formally adopted six children and plans to adopt four more.

Philip McAdoo, adoption, foster care, Every Child Deserves a Family Act, U.S. Congress, gay news, Washington Blade, LGBT

Philip McAdoo and his seven-year-old son Zaden (Washington Blade photo by Damien Salas)

“Many of my kids, they never, never cared about my sexual orientation,” Keane said. “It was about as irrelevant as you could possibly get. Having parented for 13 years now, what I’ve found is that, if anything, they learn a lot. Some of my kids have written award-winning essays about marriage equality and why gays should be allowed to marry.”

Anni Keane, one of Keane’s daughters who’s now an adult, teared up during the news conference as she talked about the importance of having a mother, saying, “Thank God she decided to be a parent for me. Because she stepped forward, I have a mom, and my daughter has a grandmother.”

Philip McAdoo, a gay Atlanta, Ga., resident and graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, talked about the experience that he and his partner, Sean Cavanaugh, had after the two-year process that led them to adopt their son Zaden, who’s now seven years old.”

“When we started talking about family, he said, ‘Oh, I what’s important in a family,'” McAdoo said. “We were like, ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘Where there’s love.’ There was never a question that there were two dads; he always wanted to know who was going to play football with him.”

Jody Huckaby, executive director for PFLAG National, said in a statement his organization in its 40 years of existence has “seen the positive effects parental support” can have on a child ā€” regardless of the sexual orientation of the parent.

ā€œWhy, then, should more than 400,000 children remain in foster careā€”104,000 of whom are eligible for adoptionā€”when they could receive this support from loving, capable, and qualified lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender parents?” Huckaby said. “This is truly discrimination at its worst: hurtful to the people who are being denied the opportunity to become parents, and harmful to thousands of vulnerable children being denied the opportunity for stable, loving, permanent homes.ā€

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

Congress

House passes spending bill as Greene threatens to oust Johnson

51 of 52 anti-LGBTQ riders were defeated

Published

on

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) speaks at a press conference on Sept. 20. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The U.S. House of Representatives averted a government shutdown on Friday with a vote of 286-134 to pass the $1.2 trillion spending bill, over the objections of hard-right members like U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

The congresswoman subsequently filed a motion to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who is himself an ultraconservative legislator. The move marked the second time in six months that the party has called for a vote to oust their own leader.

ā€œToday I filed a motion to vacate after Speaker Johnson has betrayed our conference and broken our rules,ā€ said Greene, who refused to say whether she would call up the resolution to call for a snap vote, which likely means the matter will be delayed until after the two-week recess.

Greene and Johnson are at odds over the content of the minibus appropriations package, with the congresswoman calling it a “Chuck Schumer, Democrat-controlled bill” that does not contain conservative policy demands on matters like immigration and LGBTQ issues.

The speaker, meanwhile, proclaimed, ā€œHouse Republicans achieved conservative policy wins, rejected extreme Democrat proposals, and imposed substantial cuts while significantly strengthening national defense.ā€

With respect to anti-LGBTQ riders submitted by Republican members, more than 50 were ultimately stripped from the bill, which the Human Rights Campaign celebrated as “a victory,” crediting lawmakers for their “bipartisan, bicameral negotiations.”

Of the 52 anti-LGBTQ riders, only one survived in the $1.2 trillion package passed on Friday: A ban on flying Pride flags at U.S. embassies.

Continue Reading

Congress

Massive defeat for anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ riders in spending bill

Proposal has only one rider that would target community

Published

on

U.S. Capitol
U.S. Capitol (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

On Thursday, Congress unveiled the much-anticipated spending bill to avert a government shutdown. The bill, which includes funding for major government departments such as Health and Human Services and Education, featured fierce negotiations over conservative ā€œpolicy riders.ā€ 

These policy riders included bans on coverage for gender-affirming care, DEI bans, sports bans and more. Despite some indications that Democrats might compromise due to the sheer number of conservative policy riders, it appears those fears did not come to fruition. Democrats held firm in negotiations, and the most impactful anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ riders were nowhere to be found.

One policy rider proposed for the Food and Drug Administration would have defunded any hospital that ā€œdistributes, sells or otherwise uses drugs that disrupt the onset of puberty or sexual development for those under 18,ā€ a measure targeting not only transgender youth but also those experiencing precocious puberty. 

Another rider sought to bar any government funding toward ā€œsurgical procedures or hormone therapy for the purposes of gender-affirming careā€ in the Department of Health and Human Services. This move would have significantly impacted private and subsidized insurance in the Healthcare Marketplace. It also aimed to bar the enforcement of President Joe Bidenā€™s executive order titled ā€œPreventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity,ā€ which broadened anti-discrimination protections for trans individuals.

Additional riders included bans on funding for any organization thatĀ ā€œpromotes transgenderism,ā€Ā Title IX protections for trans youth, bans on legal challenges against states over anti-LGBTQ+ laws, book bans, DEI bans and more.

In total, over 40 riders were proposed and negotiated in the spending bills. None of these were found in the final bill.

Ultimately, the final spending bill released contained only a single anti-LGBTQ rider: A ban on Pride flags being raised or displayed above foreign embassies. The policy, while certainly qualifying as anti-LGBTQ and a regression to Trump-era policies, notably does not bar personal displays of Pride flags by embassy workers.

In the past, some embassies have gotten around such bans by not ā€œflying a flag over the embassyā€ but rather, painting portions of the embassy in rainbow colors or draping flags on the side of buildings.

News of the defeat of the most impactful anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ riders comes after a significant push from Equality Caucus Democrats and the Biden administration against the riders. ā€œAs you negotiate government funding for Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24), we write to strongly urge you to reject any attempts to include anti-LGBTQ+ provisions in any final FY24 funding agreement,ā€ said a letter signed by 163 representatives on behalf of the Congressional Equality Caucus to the Biden administration.

However, Republicans also pushed hard for their inclusion. In a shutdown threat issued Feb. 21 from the House Freedom Caucus, Republicans indicated that bans on gender affirming care and trans participation in sports were necessary to prevent a potential shutdown.

Previously, U.S. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) stated that such bans are the “hill we will die on.” In a report published by Axios, one Republican lawmaker stated, ā€œPeople are predicting a shutdown even if it’s just for a few days.ā€ Others concurred, citing gender affirming care riders as one of the potential reasons for such a shutdown.

Many anti-LGBTQ leaders in the Republican Party reacted negatively to the bill. U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)Ā expressed angerĀ at funding for the New Jersey Garden State Equality in Education Fund, calling it ā€œforce feeding the LGBT agenda in schoolsā€ and stating that it enables ā€œgender mutilation surgeries in minors,ā€ ā€œbiological menā€ in womenā€™s bathrooms and trans participation in sports.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) decried the lack of a DEI ban. U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) stated that Republicans ā€œsurrenderedā€ to Democrats on hormone therapy. The House Freedom Caucus published a lengthy list of healthcare and equality centers that the budget would fund, urging the GOP to vote ā€œnoā€ and to shut down the government.

In a press release published by House Appropriations Democrats, they stated that the bill rejected over a hundred poison-pill riders, many of which targeted LGBTQ people. For example, the Labor-HHS-Education portion of the bill blocked provisions around gender affirming care, sports bans and nondiscrimination.

See the House Appropriations Democrats statement:

Press release, House Appropriations Democrats on Labor-HHS-Education

The bill must pass by Friday evening to avert a government shutdown, though the impacts of such a shutdown would likely not be felt until Monday. If passed, the bill would keep the government funded through September, at which point all of the riders could resurface during the peak of the 2024 presidential election.

However, for the next several months, LGBTQ riders will not pose a significant threat in a year where trans and queer individuals have faced attacks at historic levels.

****************************************************************************

Erin Reed is a transgender woman (she/her pronouns) and researcher who tracks anti-LGBTQ+ legislation around the world and helps people become better advocates for their queer family, friends, colleagues, and community. Reed also is a social media consultant and public speaker.

******************************************************************************************

The preceding article was first published at Erin In The Morning and is republished with permission.

Continue Reading

Congress

Padilla, FCC introduce measure to improve 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

HHS launched effort in 2022

Published

on

U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) (Screen capture: YouTube)

U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), joined by U.S. Rep. Tony CƔrdenas (D-Calif.), Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, introduced a measure on Thursday to improve the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Calls are currently routed to mental health professionals and local public safety officials based on the caller’s area code ā€” even though, as the lawmakers and officials noted during their announcement ā€” in many cases, the area code, especially for cell phone numbers, does not match the location from which they are calling.

Under the new proposal, Padilla said, “We’re going to be in a position to be able to provide care as quickly and as safely as possible.”

“In the same way that 911 calls in the case of an emergency are routed to local providers, local first responders, so ambulances can come out and help quickly when you call 911, 988 should be tied to a caller’s location, not their area code,” he said.

Calling Padilla, Tillis, and CĆ”rdenas “great champions of mental health,” Rosenworcel noted, “that’s not our stock and trade” at the FCC.

“We are people who deal with technology and communications,” she said, “but we came to realize that we could work with Congress to make sure that everyone in this country who’s going through a crisis has someone to call and someone who can listen ā€” and that’s why in 2022, we set up 988, the easy-to-remember three digit number for anyone who is in crisis.”

A press release from Padilla’s office explains the details for how the update to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline will work:

“The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) announced today seeks to address the discrepancies and inefficiencies of the current system by proposing the adoption of a rule that would require a georouting solution to be implemented for all wireless calls to the 9-8-8 Lifeline while balancing the privacy needs of individuals in crisis. 

Georouting refers to technical solutions that enable calls to be directed based on the location of the caller without transmitting the callerā€™s precise location information.Ā These solutions would permit wireless calls to the 9-8-8 Lifeline to be directed to nearby crisis centers based on factors such as the cell tower that originated the call rather than the area code of the wireless device used to place the call.”

The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline offers LGBTQ-affirming counseling, which is accessible by pressing three.

A 2023 survey by the Trevor Project, which included more than 28,000 LGBTQ participants aged 13-24, found that 41 percent had seriously considered suicide within the past year and 56 percent wanted ā€” but were unable to get ā€” mental health care within the last year.

Continue Reading
Advertisement
Advertisement

Sign Up for Weekly E-Blast

Follow Us @washblade

Advertisement

Popular