If certain adoption agencies had their way, these two boys would not have their family. Now their dads are fighting discrimination against LGBTQ parents.
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00:00I feel like coming from the LGBTQ community
00:05and experiencing what we've had to experience in our life
00:08has given us an advantage to being a parent
00:12because we know what rejection feels like.
00:21The first agency that we ever went to
00:24to speak with them about being foster parents or adopting,
00:28just shut us down.
00:30Right after that we reached out to another agency
00:32and we got an email that evening stating that
00:35they would never allow two men to be parents.
00:51I was raised pretty strict religiously.
00:54I was raised Church of Christ.
00:56With my background and my religion,
00:59we were just taught that being gay is wrong.
01:02Chris came into my life at work.
01:04He started talking to me about the process
01:06of going through the foster agencies
01:08and some of the struggles that he had
01:10just because he was gay.
01:12And that just kind of, that hurts me
01:16because there's so many kids that need a loving home.
01:19I know as of this week there are roughly 9,000,
01:22just under 9,000 children in state custody in Tennessee.
01:25Many of those kids grow up and age out of the system
01:29and become homeless and don't have the support systems.
01:33They don't have the family, the love and the nurturing.
01:35To deny people the opportunity to help those kids
01:39is a disgrace.
01:49We got a random phone call from a number here in Tennessee
01:52and we're like, hmm, wonder who this is?
01:54And it happened to be a case manager from TII.
01:58We are a different kind of agency
02:01because we don't discriminate against people
02:03based on their sexual orientation.
02:05We have two sons that we've adopted.
02:07Our youngest one is Chase,
02:09and he just turned seven a couple days ago.
02:12They share a birthday.
02:14I'm kind of jealous that I don't have that bond,
02:16but it's okay.
02:18And then our oldest son is Sheldon,
02:21and he just turned nine in April.
02:23We were their 12th home within 758 days.
02:29They had been in 12 homes.
02:31I would love to be able to sit down
02:33with conservative politicians
02:36or people that come out against gay marriage
02:39and say, look, this is what this family has done.
02:42I want you to meet this family.
02:43I want you to meet the two boys that this family has adopted.
02:46This family, who happens to be a gay couple,
02:48has managed to stabilize these kids.
02:51These kids love them, and they're happy,
02:54and now they are adopted by this family.