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.
Luke Ash, a Baptist pastor who worked at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, says he was fired after refusing to use a trans co-worker's preferred pronouns.
Luke Ash, lead pastor of Stevendale Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, says he was fired from his job as a library technician at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library after refusing to use a co-worker's preferred pronouns. He was reportedly dismissed after referring to the colleague by female pronouns during a July 7 conversation with another library employee.
"That co-worker corrected me, said that the person she was training preferred to be called 'he,' and I refused to use those preferred pronouns," Ash told anti-LGBTQ activist and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins during an interview on the conservative Christian political show Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.
"Government should either be about making your life better or leaving you the fuck alone," says Malcolm Kenyatta, vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. "That's why I keep talking about making life better, because it keeps what should be our main message at the forefront of our work."
Last month, the openly gay Pennsylvania state representative was re-elected as vice chair with near-unanimous support during a "re-vote" imposed by Democratic leaders. They claimed that his initial election to the position -- along with David Hogg, a nationally known survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida -- was influenced by factors that unfairly disadvantaged female candidates.
A rainbow crosswalk in Columbus, Ohio -- part of a federal road safety study -- was defaced when an unknown vandal poured a black tar-like substance across its brightly colored panels.
The incident comes as rainbow crosswalks nationwide face political pushback, with Republican leaders including former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis portraying them as dangerous distractions on the road.
City officials learned of the vandalism on August 25 after a Reddit post and calls to 311 alerted them to the damage. The crosswalk, at Lane and Waldeck Avenues near Ohio State University, had each of its colored panels smeared with the black substance.
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