Religious organizations are playing politics with the Florida Department of Children and Families and if they are successful, LGBT foster children lose.
The LGBT Child Welfare Work Group asked DCF to add LGBT protections to the rules governing group homes in the summer of 2015, which kicked off the discussion around updating policies. The workgroup is made up of child welfare professionals around the state who want better futures for LGBTQ youth in out-of-home care systems such as schools, foster care and homeless assistance. Robert Latham is the workgroup chair and is also the supervising attorney for the Children & Youth Law Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law.
He says the updates are intended to clarify the responsibilities of group home owners when it comes to LGBT youth and cover three main areas: how to place transgender youth; forbidding harassment, discrimination and conversion therapy and training requirements for staff and other youth with the goal of making these homes safer for LGBT children.
“These kids need specific protections,” Latham says. “You can’t just expect providers to know how.”
The workgroup received a draft of the group home rules updated with LGBT protections in November.
“That was a huge development, at the forefront of child welfare policies,” Latham says. “That was implementing modern best practices. We were so proud of our state and our [DCF].”
In January, two religious organizations that run group homes – Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops and Florida Baptist Children’s Home – testified at a public hearing on the updates and presented letters for consideration. The Baptist letter argues that LGBT children do not need special considerations and objects to the ban on conversion therapy.
“Faith based milieus allow for spiritual guidance that respect the differences among God’s creations and can do so in a safe, non-judgmental manner. Therefore, a special designation for sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression is unwarranted,” that letter reads.
The Catholic letter argues that “sexual orientation” for youth could refer to sexual conduct outside of wedlock and therefore should not be affirmed or protected, and that transgender youth are actually suffering from gender dysphoria.
“[The term ‘transgender’] is commonly used, but perpetuates the mistaken belief that sex is subject to change. No male can become a female; no female can become a male,” that letter reads.
Four days after the hearing, Latham says the DCF crossed out all rules addressing LGBT foster children and their needs.
“The DCF immediately turned course and it doesn’t make any sense at all what happened,” he says. “There is a big mystery right now what happened in those four days that made a DCF, who put themselves out there for LGBTQ youth, then backtrack.”
Hannah Willard, Policy & Outreach Coordinator for Equality Florida, says the removal of the conversion therapy language is especially troubling and implies that the DCF endorses the practice.
“The fact that this language was removed at the request of faith-based providers is particularly disturbing, given that many children are subjected to these practices by unlicensed pastors in churches or other faith institutions,” Willard says.
Activists didn’t find out the protections were removed until the new rules were published in March, and the DCF has not responded to requests as to why the changes were made, Latham says. On April 8, the DCF held another public hearing where child welfare professionals around the state spoke in support of the protections, as did religious leaders and former foster kids.
“The public hearing response was 100% positive [in favor of the protections],” Latham says. “There was not a single dissenting voice on the call.”
DCF Secretary Mike Carroll told media that the issue shouldn’t be politicized and that “DCF absolutely does not and will not tolerate any discrimination against any vulnerable child for any reason.”
“It is not enough to issue a blanket commitment to fairness without backing that commitment up. There’s no proposal in front of us to remove the already enumerated protections for race, religion, disability, and other characteristics, and the Department should not be considering removing protections for sexual orientation and gender identity either,” says Willard.
Latham adds that the kicker is that because the updates focus on “education, training and moving to becoming a more affirming place,” the burden on group homes would have been minimal.
“What [the objectors] are saying is not only do we not want to do this, we refuse to try,” he says.
Willard says EQFL believes DCF wants to do the right thing.
“We know they originally consulted child welfare advocates for guidance on how to protect LGBTQ youth and only recently wavered under pressure from the far right,” she says. “We urge them to reinstate protections for LGBTQ youth and ensure that these vulnerable children are safe, protected, and affirmed while under the state’s care.”
DCF is accepting public comment on the issue through April 15. EQFL has created a form to email Secretary Carroll.
