Patience, Grasshoppers

As one might imagine, the blogosphere has been abuzz over the past few days with news of the vote by the Texas House to ban glbts from being foster parents. As you might imagine, as an avowed gay conservative running a Texas-based blog, I've gotten more than my fair share of comments (and brickbats) concerning this issue, so I thought it time to do a quick breakdown of the situation and what I perceive to be necessary at this point.

Background

There has been a quiet push over the past few years to revamp Child Protective Services, which is the Texas state agency that oversees adoption and foster care. This flared into a full-fledged fire after several highly-publicized abuse cases came to light in 2004.

Towards this end, two CPS reform bills were raised in the House and Senate -- Senate Bill 6, authored by Senator Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville (northern 'burb of Dallas), and in the House by Representative Suzanna Huff, R-Lampasas (about 75 miles northwest of Austin). The Senate bill does NOT contain the strictures against glbts being foster parents; the House bill, as amended on the floor of the House by Representative Robert Talton, R-Pasadena (a suburb of Houston), does (it did not originally).

This isn't the first time that Talton has tried such tricks. Ever since he's been around, he's been filing bills that seek to limit foster care and adoption to married couples, all of which have previously died in committee. For those of us who watch and lobby the Texas Legislature, it's almost become a ritual.

The Current Situation

This time, however, I think Talton's maneuver may have backfired completely -- which, as the information I am getting from my sources in Austin indicates, may have been the entire point of House leadership allowing the amendment vote in the first place. Senator Jane Nelson, who I've previously blogged about, is seriously pissed -- and even Representative Suzanna Hupp, who traditionally has held some sympathies with Talton, is publicly horrified over the possibility of foster kids being yanked away from their parents. The Dallas Morning News ran an excellent article today profiling a gay foster care family, and came out publicly against the amendment in an editorial that is a model of intelligent argument and balance.

The Future

As a result, my prediction is that the final bill as produced by a conference committee of the House and Senate will delete the amendment completely because of the legal tangles it presents and the importance of getting CPS reform going. All of the "rewrites" of the amendment that Representative Hupp offered in the above quote create problems, i.e. state agencies being allowed to deny glbts being foster parents when they can't legally inquire whether they're glbt or not, and would likely trigger an immediate legal challenge -- the danger of which Senator Nelson will never tolerate.

There are still three things we need to do:

-- Thank Senator Nelson and Representative Hupp for putting the welfare of Texas children above antigay discrimination. Hupp, especially.....for her to buck Talton on this is a major step forward. I think she may have finally realized that Talton and his ilk are wingnuts who care nothing for anything other than their own prejudices.

-- Thank Republican legislators like Representative Ray Allen, R-Grand Prairie (a suburb between Dallas and Fort Worth) who voted against the Talton amendment (there's a list at Burnt Orange Report).

-- Continue to stay ever vigilant.