GOP Senator Introduces Bill That Throws LGBTQ+ Foster Children Under the Bus [View all]

Source: The Advocate

GOP Senator Introduces Bill That Throws LGBTQ+ Foster Children Under the Bus

The new bill takes aim at recent changes to HHS policy on adoption, ensuring LGBTQ+ foster children are placed in supportive homes.

BY DONALD PADGETT
DECEMBER 10 2023 3:49 PM EST

U.S. Sen. Jim Banks introduced a bill on Thursday that would force adoption and foster placement services that receive federal funding to place LGBTQ+ children in homes with non-affirming guardians.

The Iowa Republican’s bill takes direct aim at recent proposed reforms to federal guidelines that require LGBTQ+ children to be placed in foster homes with a supportive environment for the child’s sexual and gender identity.

Banks’s H.R. 6658, tentatively entitled the Sensible Adoption for Every (SAFE) Home Act, targets the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its proposed reforms to the Safe and Appropriate Foster Care Placement Requirements for Titles IV-E and IV-B.

“The proposed rule would protect LGBTQI+ youth by placing them in environments free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the child’s LGBTQI+ status,” HHS said in a statement announcing the proposed reforms in September. “And the proposed rule would require that caregivers for LGBTQI+ children are properly and fully trained to provide for the needs of the child related to the child’s self-identified sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.”

Banks’s bill takes direct aim at the reforms in H.R. 6658, ...

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Read more: https://www.advocate.com/law/lgbtq-foster-children-banks-bill