Connecticut’s child welfare division is openly declaring their acceptance of same-sex parents so that their state can be known as a welcoming place for LGBTQ people, according to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
“We just have to get this word out,” Malloy told the Associated Press. “We have to get more of our children placed with our families in our state.”
The Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) will work with LGBTQ organizations and community centers to encourage same-sex couples to apply to become either adoptive or foster parents. Connecticut currently has around 4,300 children being cared for by the state, half of which are unlikely to return to their original home.
DCF Commissioner Joette Katz told AP that they currently have around 100 LGBTQ families, but wish to to raise that number to 250 by the end of Malloy’s term. “There are hundreds, if not thousands of families, that have a lot of love to give,” she said.
Connecticut’s outreach to the LGBTQ community stands in staunch opposition to recent efforts in other states. Lawmakers in Kansas and Oklahoma recently passed bills that allow adoption and foster care agencies to refuse to place children with “immoral” same-sex couples.
Shannon Smith, who adopted two young boys in DCF care with his husband Ross Stencil, said that these restrictions against gay adoptions have scared off same-sex couples looking to adopt.
“I think it’s nice DCF is pulling out the stops to really let people know, ’Hey, your love is just as good as anybody else’s. Don’t listen to that other garbage that everyone is saying. If you’re a great parent, we’re going to get you a kid,” he said.
On July 21, Wilmer Chavarria, superintendent of Vermont's Winooski School District, was detained for hours by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport after returning from a family visit to Nicaragua with his husband, Essex High School teacher Cyrus Dudgeon.
Officers seized Chavarria's phone and computer, separated him from Dudgeon, and interrogated him for at least five hours about his marriage and his job, according to Vermont's alternative weekly Seven Days.
During the interrogation, agents questioned whether Chavarria and Dudgeon were really married and repeatedly asked if Chavarria was actually a school superintendent. In an email to school board members, Chavarria described the experience as "abusive interrogation" and said he was "treated in a manner that is deeply disturbing and unacceptable."
Police in Paris, France, have arrested a homeless Tunisian migrant accused of killing four men whose bodies were later found in the Seine River. The case began on August 13, when a commuter spotted a corpse floating in the river. Investigators subsequently recovered three more bodies from the same stretch of water.
Autopsies confirmed all four victims were men. At least two had been strangled, though forensic experts could not determine the exact cause of death for the others, according to The Times. Police are investigating the four deaths as homicides.
Owners of several D.C. LGBTQ bars and nightclubs say the federal takeover of the city’s police force -- and the surge of federal agents stationed on 14th Street NW and along the U Street corridor -- cost them thousands of dollars in lost business this past weekend.
Mark Rutstein, co-owner of Crush Dance Bar at 14th and U Streets NW, told CBS affiliate WUSA that August 15 was the worst Friday the bar has seen since opening last year. He estimated losses to be approximately $15,000 for the night.
Rutstein told The Advocate that Crush sat near a multi-agency checkpoint, including agents from the Department of Homeland Security, set up on Wednesday evening. Authorities reportedly made 45 arrests, 29 of them immigration-related.
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