- There has been a growing resurgence of state legislation and lawsuits in recent years trying to block LGBTQ couples from fostering or adopting children.
- In some cases, states have made it difficult for same-sex parents to have rights to children they conceived through fertility treatments.
- LGBTQ activists note such policies can make it harder to find homes for children in need – there are more than 400,000 foster children across the United States.
Fatma Marouf and Bryn Esplin wanted a big family. The married couple, who both work as professors at Texas A&M University, knew they had love and security to give.
But when they applied to foster a refugee child under a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services program operated by the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Fort Worth, Texas, they were told they couldn’t move forward. The agency wouldn’t work with two mothers.