With the Virginia Board of Social Services set to weigh new rgulations that would allow gay couples to adopt children as early as next week, advocates ramped up their push Wednesday for Gov. Bob McDonnell and the board to accept the new rules.
The regulations would bar state-licensed adoption agencies, including faith-based groups, from discriminating against prospective applicants based on their sexual orientation.
Representatives from advocacy organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign and Equality Virginia pushed on Wednesday for the state department of social services to adopt the new regulations.
“The time for politics is over,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “Sexual orientation plays no role whatsoever in the ability to raise children.”
Greg Greeley, a gay adoptive parent living in Northern Virginia, said he reached out to “dozens and dozens” of adoption agencies in Virginia, but was refused. The agency he did find actually directed him to the former Soviet Union to adopt.
“I can tell you now that my son Kolya is 10 years old, he’s happy, he’s in a loving home and I appreciate every day I have with him,” Greeley said, adding that Kolya might like to have a brother – or two. He said he hoped when that time comes, it would be someone from Virginia, and not someone from overseas.
Opponents of the proposed changes, which include the Virginia Catholic Conference and the Family Foundation, argue, though, that the changes could infringe on the religious beliefs of faith-based adoption agencies.
Gov. Bob McDonnell has suggested that he opposes the rule change that would explicitly prohibit discrimination against gay parents.
“Many of our adoption agencies are faith-based groups that ought to be able to establish what their own policies are,” he recently told reporters. “Current regulations that say that you can’t discriminate on the basis of race, or color or national origin I think are proper.”
Further, the office of Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued a memo dated Tuesday saying that the proposed regulation “does not comport with applicable state law” and, therefore, the state board lacks the authority to adopt the new rules.
In December 2009, the office of former Attorney General Bill Mims advised that it appeared the state board did have the authority to do so.
