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Saturday, November 29, 1997

Case of lesbian foster couple raises issue of agency policy

By MELISSA WILLIAMS Associated Press

DALLAS - Carol Montgomery and her lesbian partner, Margaret, have gone to great lengths to provide male role models for their adopted daughters, ages 3 1/2 and 10 months.

Two men the girls know as "Poppy" and "Daddy" are a homosexual couple with whom the children spend one night a week and celebrate family outings and holidays.

"It's not like the children will not have a father," said Margaret, who did not want her last name revealed. "These are men that have been very close to us for the last eight years."

Depending on one's view, the unusual arrangement either demonstrates that any loving couple can provide a balanced perspective for children - or tacitly acknowledges the primacy of the traditional mother-father household.

The tension between those views is at the heart of a grievance filed this month by a state child welfare worker who was demoted for removing a foster child from the home of another lesbian couple.

Rebecca Bledsoe has asked to be returned to her job as a supervisor with the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services in Austin, the agency that oversees Child Protective Services.

She also wants the department to clarify its policy on placing children with homosexuals either as foster or adoptive parents, and to remove all children from foster and adoptive homes where there is known homosexual conduct.

"How many men do you know who would choose to have been raised by two women rather than a father and a mother?" asks Bledsoe. "I don't know too many men who would choose that."

On Aug. 5, after learning of the then-3-month-old boy's placement with the lesbian couple, Bledsoe ordered his emergency removal and placed him with another foster mother. According to her grievance, she reasoned that "homosexual conduct is against the law in Texas." But she said later she also believes children are better off with married couples and single people rather than homosexual couples.

Bledsoe's lawyer, Roger Evans of Dallas, said her stance is consistent with the mission of Child Protective Services.

"This is not an anti-homosexual kind of thing," he said. "It's about what's best for the child, not doing what's best for two warm, loving and caring lesbians. That's not the goal of this agency."

The foster couple and their lawyer, Dave Cole of Dallas, declined to comment.

Bledsoe's superiors deny that she was demoted for opposing homosexuality and say she was sanctioned for violating procedures in abruptly removing the child from his home. He was returned a day later by order of CPS officials.

"We do have a very clear policy that says you don't move kids from foster, adoptive or birth homes unless there's an immediate threat to a child," said agency regional director Wayne Hairgrove. "If you want to move a child, you have to notify the caretaker and the child's attorney. That's why we took adverse action against her."

Bledsoe's grievance is working its way through the administrative process, which she must exhaust before she files her intended lawsuit against the agency.

As for the baby, he apparently will not remain with his foster parents, who had expressed a desire to adopt the now-7-month-old.

An uncle, Eugene Helm of Illinois, has come forward with an offer to adopt the child if the parents' rights are terminated. Helm received national publicity last year for deferring his college education so he could care for several nieces and nephews, including the baby's older twin sisters and three cousins.

The debate over placing abused and neglected children in foster or adoptive homes with homosexual couples is not unique to Texas. Both sides draw a distinction between such cases and custody battles involving a biological parent who has come out as a homosexual and adoption of children who are not in the care of the state, such as babies from foreign countries.

According to Jenny Sayward, director of the Seattle-based Lavender Families Resource Network, most states, like Texas, lack specific policies prohibiting gays from becoming foster and adoptive parents.

That has made for a wide variation in practice. Agencies in some states that don't bar homosexual adoption of foster children have "made it possible for some couples to have successful adoptions if they get the right caseworker," Sayward said. "In fact, even when there are policies specifically allowing gay and lesbian fostering and adoption, you still need to have an accepting caseworker."

New Hampshire and Florida are the only states with statutes that specifically prohibit adoption by homosexuals. In Florida's case, the law dates to 1977, the era when singer Anita Bryant raised public fears about homosexuals having contact with children.

Sam Chavers, a state lawyer who recently fended off a legal challenge to Florida's law, argued that studies have yet to examine what happens to children adopted by homosexual couples to whom they have no biological link.

Sayward, whose organization supports gay and lesbian parents, acknowledged that oft-cited studies that found no negative effect on children adopted by homosexuals focus on children related to one of the partners. They are typically lesbians' children conceived by donor insemination and children of parents who conceived them in heterosexual marriages and later entered homosexual relationships.

The distinction is significant, contends Chavers, assistant general counsel for the Florida Department of Children and Families.

"Everybody thinks that (homosexual adoption of non-related children) would not be a problem, but nobody knows for sure," he said.

In Texas, spokesman Stewart Davis of the Department of Regulatory and Protective Services said married heterosexual couples are preferred for foster and adoptive homes if they are available, with single people also considered. The main question, he said, is whether prospective parents can meet a child's material and emotional needs.

In the case of unmarried heterosexual or homosexual couples, both partners are evaluated, but only one becomes the licensed parent, Davis said.

He rejected Bledsoe's argument that the sodomy law, which has been challenged, should prohibit placement with gays and lesbians.

"We don't know that criminal activity is ongoing in the homes where we place children," Davis said. "We would hope that it isn't, and we do everything we can to try to avoid criminal activity from happening, but we're not the police and we don't try to enforce the penal code.

"We are interested in finding people who can protect and nurture and parent abused children."Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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