State GLB Adoption Policies
• Only Florida forbids “homosexuals” from adopting (Florida Statutes § 63.042(3)), and bisexuals are also apparently disqualified.
• Mississippi explicitly bans “same-gender” couples from adopting (MISS CODE ANN § 93-17-3-(5)), as does Utah through a ban on adoption by all unmarried couples (UTAH CODE ANN § 78-30-1(3)(b)). However, single GLB people in Mississippi and Utah might be able to adopt.
• In contrast, some states have policies that either explicitly or implicitly state that sexual orientation cannot be a basis to prevent gay and lesbian people from adopting, including California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and the District of Columbia (Cooper and Cates, 2006, p. 6).
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State GLB Fostering Policies
• Nebraska has a policy prohibiting gay people from fostering, but the current enforcement of that policy is unclear (Cooper and Cates, 2006).
• As with adoption, Utah forbids fostering by unmarried couples (UTAH CODE ANN § 62A-4A-602).
• A policy banning gay foster parents was recently removed by the Department of Social Services in Missouri and overturned by the state Supreme Court in Arkansas (Cooper and Cates, 2006, p. 11).