The Austin gay and lesbian community is speaking out for Texas foster children and their families, all in response to an amendment to Senate Bill 6, which reforms Child Protective Services.
Under the amendment authored by state Rep. Robert Talton, R-Pasadena, homosexual and bisexual parents would be banned from fostering children and the Department of Family Protective Services would be required to ask prospective parents about their sexuality. DFPS and CPS currently do not investigate sexual preference before placing foster children.
"In Austin, we don't have any problems being gay," said Holly Lindsey, who fosters two teenage children with her partner Carol Boeck. The couple has taken in five children, including three teenagers and two infants. Currently the two infants are being adopted out of the system by other families.
According to a 2002 report by the American Academy of Pediatrics, children with homosexual parents have the "same advantages and the same expectations for health, adjustment and development as children whose parents are heterosexual."
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychological Association also support same-sex adoption, finding no psychological or developmental detriments to children raised in a homosexual or bisexual home.
"We're just a normal family," Lindsey said. "We're just living our lives and loving our kids - these kids who have been so harmed. We're just your average neighbors."
The amendment would ban homosexual parents from adopting children. Foster children currently placed would also be removed from homes with gay and bisexual parents.
"It's very traumatic to remove a child from a stable home," said Colin Cunliff, field director for the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas. "It's the whole reason they're in the foster system, because their prior home wasn't stable. You're adding to the instability."
The removed children would then be reinstated into the foster-care system, which critics such as state Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, and Jake Holbrook, director of UT organization StandOut, said would add to the already overburdened placement system.
"The amendment would remove thousands of children from homes and [they would] be placed back in orphanages," Holbrook said. "Children deserve to be in homes."
Talton's reason for the amendment is his belief that children should not be raised by homosexual parents, and that living in such a household increases the likelihood of becoming homosexual or bisexual.
"Some of us believe they would be better off in orphanages than in a homosexual or bisexual households because that's a learned behavior," he said. "If they choose to be homosexual or lesbian, that's their choice when they turn 18."
If the amendment passes a conference committee along with SB 6, Texas will be the only state banning homosexual and bisexual parents from fostering children. Arkansas previously had such a law, but it was ruled unconstitutional in December.
StandOut will be rallying at the south steps of Capitol at noon today against the amendment.
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