Approximately 85 percent of states lack explicit laws or regulations protecting LGBTQ foster or adoptive parents from discrimination. Many of these states are passing religious exemption laws that would explicitly allow child placement agencies to refuse certain prospective parents, such as LGBTQ parents, for religious reasons. John Freml discusses having his foster daughter taken from his home after her biological relatives objected to her being placed with a same-sex couple.
Learn more about anti-LGBTQ discrimination in adoption and foster care, or share your own story, at www.welcomingallfamilies.org.
Jasmine Hardy is the video editor at the Center for American Progress. Frank J. Bewkes is a policy analyst for the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center.