foster care

The Daily Telegraph newspaper in New South Wales, Australia has reported that a gay couple has had the ban on them becoming foster parents overturned and have been awarded $10000 compensation. The story appeared in the Daily Telegraph by Bruce McDougall.

[ More Australian Gay Parenting News available at http://gaydadsaustralia.blogspot.com ]

A GAY couple have won a landmark discrimination case after they were banned from becoming foster parents because they are homosexual.

Huffington Post's Peggy Drexler underscores the good news related to state governments which support lesbian and gay parenting. Eleven states and DC explicitly state that sexual orientation cannot be the basis for adoption denial. Ohio was the only state - in 2006 - to introduce a ban. The proposed ban failed when backers couldn't generate enough support.

Drexler writes: "It was an admission, political observers say, that orientation-based divisiveness just isn't what it used to be."

A ban on gay adoptions has been in effect in Florida since 1977. This video introduces Curtis Watson and his partner, Scott Elsass, who tell the story of how they came to foster Francesca and Angelina, two girls whom the state could not place anywhere else.

According to the ACLU, the girls went from being “problem” children to harmonious members of a loving family. But - after a judge awarded the couple legal custody of Francesca and Angelina - the state tried to remove the girls from their home because Watson and Elsass are gay.

National Adoption Day is a collective effort to raise awareness of the 114,000 children in the U.S foster care system - all waiting to find permanent, caring families.

This year's theme is "Answering the Call - You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent. There are thousands of teens in foster care who would love to put up with you."

Three weeks ago, in Utah County, a niece asked her uncle to take her 4 kids. To care for them because she can't. She's dealing with drug-related criminal matters - and the kids are aged 11, 6, 2-years, and 10 months. The father's not able to care for them either.

The uncle happens to be gay, and in a long term relationship. Michael Valdez and Michael Oberg have been together for about 5 years. They have steady jobs, a nice home, and no criminal record - but they aren't allowed by law to take-in the needy kids.

Two Portland women who have fought for the past six years to adopt two siblings, now aged 10 and 6. And now the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled in the lesbian family's favor.

Supreme court justices unanimously struck down a previous ruling by the Cumberland County Probate Court, which did not allow Ann Courtney and Marilyn Kirby to jointly adopt the children.

Gays and lesbians are fighting to become parents in many parts of America. More and more of us are working within the framework available to us and getting the job done.

Every family's story is unique.