Anti-gay adoption bill being considered in Kentucky

The Fairness Campaign is opposing Kentucky Senate Bill 68 [sponsored by state Sen. Gary Tapp, R-Shelbyville] that would bar gay and lesbian couples from adopting children.

The AP reports that the measure would allow children to be placed only in adoptive or foster homes with people who “are not cohabiting outside of a marriage that is legally valid in Kentucky.”

Under the legislation, children who were already placed in such homes before the legislation was enacted would not be uprooted.

Chris Hartman, head of The Fairness Campaign, said the legislation unjustly rules out potentially good parents just because they’re not married in the traditional sense.

“We literally can’t afford to play politics with these children’s lives,” Hartman said. “Hundreds of children are awaiting adoption each day in Kentucky, and it should be our politicians’ jobs to find them a home, not to categorically eliminate potential loving parents with an anti-gay political attack.”

David Edmunds, a spokesman for The Family Foundation, said the legislation isn’t discriminatory toward gay and lesbian couples because it also bars unmarried heterosexual couples from adoption and foster care.

Hartman said at least six other states – Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska and Utah – have similar laws that he called “direct attacks” on nontraditional couples. The Kentucky measure, he said, “is irresponsible on every front” and isn’t likely to pass during the current legislative session.