"When you allow people to discriminate against LGBTQ+ couples, you deprive children of families who are going to love them."
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney shared the story of adopting his children while opposing a regulation that could allow agencies to refuse LGBTQ+ couples on religious grounds.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney shared the story of adopting his children while opposing a regulation that could allow agencies to refuse LGBTQ+ couples on religious grounds.
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00:0013 days after that child was born,
00:03she was home in New York with two loving parents,
00:05and that child is 19 years old today
00:08and a freshman at John Jay College in New York.
00:10And she's a beautiful young woman.
00:12And she would not have had a mom and a dad.
00:16So you keep having them and we'll keep raising them,
00:19is the way we felt about it.
00:21Did she deserve a mom and a dad?
00:22Yes, she did.
00:24But she also deserved people who loved her
00:26who were going to raise her.
00:27And that is what is at stake today.
00:29Our third child, the adoption agency,
00:31same one, two years later, came to us, same story.
00:34Very similar.
00:35They sought out LGBTQ parents
00:38because they knew they would adopt when others wouldn't.
00:41♪♪
00:43♪♪
00:57You know, in listening to the ranking members' opening remarks,
01:00I was thinking maybe the day will come
01:02where people like me and Mark,
01:04some of the people behind us, won't have to come in here
01:08like supplicants seeking our basic rights.
01:11And we won't be treated to expressions of discrimination
01:14dressed up as religious liberty.
01:16But even today, that is not the country we live in.
01:21You know, I've been with my husband for almost 28 years.
01:29We were allowed to get married just five years ago.
01:32And for 27 of those years, we've been raising children.
01:36We have three children.
01:38My oldest came to us when he was not quite three years old.
01:43He had been barely eating solid foods.
01:47He was sleeping in a drawer.
01:48He was living in Squalor,
01:50in one of the toughest neighborhoods in New York City.
01:52His parents were heroin addicts.
01:55They had four children.
01:56I think they loved their children.
01:58I know they loved drugs more.
02:00And they were unable to take care of them.
02:02And we didn't set out to be parents.
02:04This wasn't about fulfilling some desire we had.
02:07It was because someone asked us if we could help.
02:09And we said we would.
02:11And soon after that, his mom OD'd.
02:16And there was no one to bury her.
02:17So we did.
02:20And his dad went to jail.
02:22And there was no one to take care of this little boy.
02:26So we did.
02:28And it was the greatest thing that ever happened to us.
02:32We'd been together for four months as a couple.
02:35That young man is 30 years old today.
02:38And I think if you asked him, Representative Heiss,
02:42about the family he was raised in,
02:45well, let's just say I'd go with what he has to say
02:48about the ability of LGBT couples to parent and to foster.
02:52And you know, it was a few years later
02:55that an adoption agency called us from Texas, sir.
03:01A group called the Adoption Alliance
03:03that was licensed in Texas and Nevada.
03:06And the reason they were calling us in New York
03:08was not because we were seeking to adopt.
03:10It was because they had learned in the 1990s
03:15that there were certain types of kids
03:17who were not gonna be adopted,
03:19where the circumstances of their birth,
03:21through no fault of their own, obviously,
03:22was difficult or confronting
03:26for traditional adoptive parents.
03:29Where there were issues of HIV or rape or incest,
03:34sometimes mixed with concerns about interracial adoption.
03:39And what these adoption agencies learned, to their credit,
03:43was that there were LGBT couples in cities like New York
03:47who would say yes to these children.
03:50Not as an alternative to the straight couple
03:53that was gonna raise them.
03:54As an alternative to never being adopted,
03:57because no one was gonna adopt these kids.
04:00And it was that insight that LGBT couples
04:04were willing to cross lines of difference
04:07because they had experience doing so in their own lives.
04:10That they had less preoccupation or hysteria
04:13with things like HIV.
04:14That they were more willing to adopt
04:16across lines of difference, like race or religion.
04:21That there was an opportunity for kids
04:22that would not have a home to have a home.
04:25And so it is because of that
04:28that on January 10th, 2001,
04:31I learned of my oldest daughter
04:33who had been born just five days earlier.
04:35We had no intention of adopting.
04:39That she had been born in Texas
04:41to a United States military member,
04:45excuse me, to the granddaughter
04:46of a United States military member.
04:47Her mom was 14 years old.
04:50She didn't even know she was pregnant.
04:51She was playing basketball and complained of cramps
04:54and delivered the baby when the doctors thought
04:58she had appendicitis.
04:59And they called us because no one else was gonna do it.
05:02And so 13 days later, my partner and I
05:08were standing in front of a Texas judge
05:10at eight o'clock in the morning
05:11before his docket started.
05:13And he said, are you fellas gonna raise this child?
05:15And we said, yes sir.
05:17And he finalized the adoption on the spot.
05:19No rescission rights in the state of Texas.
05:21So the point is, the point is,
05:23is when you allow people to discriminate
05:25against those couples, you deprive children
05:29of good moms, dads, families who are gonna love them.
05:33And when you dress it up as religious liberty,
05:36you simply sanction discrimination
05:38and deprive those children of a home that they deserve.
05:41And so we're here because the Trump administration,
05:43as we know, has green-lighted licensed discriminate laws
05:46to allow federally funded organizations,
05:49federally funded organizations to discriminate
05:52against adoptive and foster parents
05:54who don't share the organization's religious beliefs.
05:57And that means also LGBTQ parents
05:59and people of other religions won't be able to adopt.
06:02And those kids are the ones that are gonna lose.
06:04Hundreds of thousands of kids who need foster parents
06:08who need adoptive parents.
06:10That is the collateral damage that will ensue
06:12if we allow these discriminatory practices to occur
06:16under the guise of religious freedom.
06:19Our only goal when providing,
06:22our only goal when providing child services
06:25is to be looking out for the best interests of the kids.
06:27That's all that matters.
06:29LGBTQ couples are not afraid of that test.
06:32Parents are parents.
06:33Good parents are good parents.
06:35Bad parents are bad parents.
06:38And it doesn't matter what they look like, who they love.