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(Kansas City Missouri) A Kansas City judge was
told on Thursday that the state's ban on gays serving as foster parents is a
disservice to thousands of children in need of homes.
The argument was made in court documents filed
Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a Kansas City
lesbian who is fighting to a foster mother.
Lisa Johnston and her partner Dawn Roginski are
barred by an unwritten state policy which prevents them from taking children
into their home because they are openly gay.
The
ACLU is asking the court to overturn an earlier administrative ruling upholding
the denial.
Even the state acknowledges that Johnston is
"exceptionally qualified" to be a foster parent.
She has a bachelor's degree in human development
and family, with special emphasis on child development. She's an educational
consultant who also has worked for an organization that trains foster parents.
Roginski, who has a master's degree in counseling
and another in divinity, works as a therapist and chaplain at a treatment center
for young people with emotional and behavioral disorders.
The Missouri Department of Social Services cited
the unwritten state policy in denying Johnston's application to become a foster
parent.
"To categorically deny gay people the chance to be foster parents
accomplishes nothing beyond making it harder to place the nearly 2,000 foster
children in need of permanent homes in Missouri," said Julie Brueggemann,
Executive Director of PROMO, Missouri's statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender rights organization.
"Every mainstream child
advocacy and mental health organization is opposed to foster care policies that
ban lesbians and gay men, because such bans serve only to hurt children who need
homes."
Among the national groups that support parenting by gay and lesbian people are
the American Medical Association, the Child Welfare League of America, the
American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and the
North American Council on Adoptable Children.
Johnston had applied to DSS in 2003 to become a
foster parent to a child that she and Roginski, hoped to raise
together. The couple underwent an extensive home study and then began attending
a training program for prospective foster parents until DSS notified Johnston
that it would no longer consider her for placement solely because she is a
lesbian.
Although the administrative judge found Johnston to be
"exceptionally" qualified to be a foster parent, he upheld the denial of
her application in March 2005. The decision was based in part on a
Missouri law banning sexual intimacy between same-sex couples that the ACLU
argues was rendered
unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas.
"The Department of Social Services has based its decision to bar gay people
from serving as foster parents on nothing more than a handful of outdated and
misguided reasons," said Scott Emanuel, LGBT Rights Project Coordinator at
the ACLU of Eastern Missouri.
"Today we're asking the court to
do the right thing, reverse the DSS ruling, and make more loving homes available
to Missouri's children."
Deborah Scott, a spokesperson for DSS, said the
agency had been expecting the legal filing. She said DSS now has 30 days to
respond, but would not comment further.
According to the most recent statistics, the DSS is struggling to find homes for
more than 1,900 foster children. Under Missouri law, every potential
foster parent is already required to undergo strict screening before being
qualified to foster parent.
©365Gay.com 2005
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