For the past few years, Kristy and Dana have been preparing their life for children. A couple for over a decade, the prospective parents have been hoping to provide a forever home to children in foster care. They moved into a beautiful neighborhood in Dimondale, Michigan — a community with spacious backyards and plenty of trails for lazy Sunday bike-rides. They researched the school district, ensuring that there would be plenty of extracurricular activities. They decorated spare bedrooms with bright, warm, colors for future foster children and family visits.
A couple like this may seem to be the ideal prospective adoptive parents. Yet when they reached out to state-contracted child placing agencies to move forward with adoption, they were turned away because they are a same-sex couple.
Dana, who works for the state department, would receive emails from Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services with profiles and photos of youth who were in need of adoptive families. These images warmed her heart and she would share them with Kristy, and the two began seriously considering adoption.
The couple reached out to two child placing agencies in their area: Catholic Charities and Bethany Christian Services. The agencies did not subject them to any in-depth investigation of their relationship or character — the only thing they knew was that the pair was a same-sex couple. And they were turned away because same-sex couples do not meet these agencies’ religious eligibility standards.
Kristy and Dana were determined to do something about the fact that the number of forever families available for the thousands of children in the state of Michigan’s care was being limited by the discriminatory practices of some state-contracted child placing agencies.
They are now plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, challenging the state’s practice of allowing state-contracted, taxpayer-funded child placing agencies to use religious criteria to exclude prospective foster and adoptive families headed by same-sex couples.
At first, the couple was bracing themselves for bigotry and criticism, but they were pleasantly surprised by an outpouring of support from around the country. They receive postcards, thank-you notes and letters from other same-sex families who are inspired and encouraged by their advocacy.
For Dana and Kristy, it remains all about the children. “It’s about those kids out their waiting, and there are 13,000 in Michigan. That’s what it’s all about,” Kristy said.