My, but the Texas lege is just such a lovely place.
Texas would become the only state to ban homosexuals and bisexuals from becoming foster parents under legislation passed today by the House.
The ban was an amendment tacked on to a bill that would overhaul the state's troubled Child Protective Services agency. The measure now goes to the Senate, which has approved a version of the CPS bill but not the foster parent amendment.
"It is our responsibility to make sure that we protect our most vulnerable children and I don't think we are doing that if we allow a foster parent that is homosexual or bisexual," said the author of the amendment added late Tuesday, Republican Rep. Robert Talton of Pasadena.
If the bill becomes law, Texas would be the only state to ban homosexuals from becoming foster parents, according to the American Civil Liberties Union Lesbian and Gay Rights project. Arkansas had banned gay people or any family with a gay member from becoming foster parents, but a judge in December declared the law unconstitutional....
What impresses me is not that it passed -- that sort of thing is passing everywhere these days -- but the lopsided numbers by which it passed. I would think that unless the Texas Senate is indeed more contemplative and liberal than its House counterpart, this amendment is very likely to pass, and then it will go up to Governor Perry to sign or reject -- and somehow, I can't imagine this particular governor rejecting that bill.
For the sake of accuracy, one would also note that Florida also bans gay adoptive parents. Texas would just be taking it one step further to include foster parents -- and since the general idea is that, when possible, foster parents could become adoptive parents, that actually makes a twisted sort of sense.
I do wonder how the overworked and strained Texas Child Protective Services is going to manage to take this on. The idea of going back and retroactively reviewing all applications, all current foster homes, all current adoptive parents to start the "Gay or not?" Texas holy inquisition must just be giving those workers screaming nightmares.
I do just love how states are now deciding that it's a far far better thing to allow children to languish in the state's care than to allow them to go to a home with a gay parent. (Or, in the case of the Arkansas ban that was struck down, a gay person who had ever had anything to do with the family anywhere because you just know those legislators thought that those gay cooties were catching! but I digress.) One wonders, should all this pass, what harvest the state will receive from these ill-considered actions and neglected children in later years.
Posted by iain at April 20, 2005 02:57 PM
