Just a week after Connecticut Bans Anti-Gay Conversion Therapy For Minors, the state goes and does this … and we say BRAVO!
Connecticut is taking a stance on adoption and is looking to be known as the state that welcomes and embraces its LGBTQ+ community. While some states like Oklahoma and Kansas decide to show their ugly bland colors (Kansas Governor Signs Anti-LGBT Adoption Bill Into State Law), Governor Dannel Malloy (DEM) wants to assist his state's over 4,300 children currently in state care.
“We just have to get this word out,” Malloy said. “We have to get more of our children placed with our families in our state.”
It's not just the role of adoptive parents, but also that of foster parents where LGBTQ+ couples can assist and the Connecticut Department of Children and Families’ s is reaching out to our community to make homes for kids in need.
There are other programs across the country, but they are usually city or countywide, but to have a state reach out in this way is unique. Of course Connecticut will not place children in any home that is offered, it is just that our community is being seen and happily targeted in the new campaign to seek out qualified and good candidates. There are currently about 100 LGBTQ+ adoptive families in Connecticut and the hope is to more than double that number.
“There are hundreds, if not thousands of families, that have a lot of love to give,” she said, noting a 2013 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law that found same-sex couples are four times more likely than different-sex couples to raise an adopted child and six times more likely to raise foster children.
Who better to help those in need, to understand the struggles of growing up differently than LGBTQ+ parents. That might be what Connecticut is hoping on. We know the struggles of coming from a less than perfect past, a less than perfect family experience, a less than perfect childhood.
“Those are the ones who become the best parents,” he said. “They’re the ones that look at this child and say, ‘I will never throw you away.’ And that says everything to a child.”
There's no way we can say LGBTQ+ parents are better or worse than a straight parental unit. Each family is different, deals with different issues, struggles, challenges, but we think it is great that Connecticut is not necessarily rolling out the red carpet to LGBTQ+ couples, but instead the state is holding the door open and saying you are welcome.
To be honest, it is not the first time Connecticut has done this, but it has stepped up its outreach to our community even more, and we know we need to hear good news about things like this. Back in November of 2017, the governor and DCF reached out to the LGBTQ+ community.
Connecticut’s governor and its commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, who played a role in legalizing gay marriage as a state Supreme Court justice in 2008, marked Adoption Awareness Month on Monday by highlighting the state’s outreach to same-sex couples as potential adoptive parents of children in foster care. – theCTMirror
Bravo Connecticut. Keep fighting the fight. And keep helping those kids.
h/t: nbcnews