Dozens of Anti-LGBT Bills Proposed This Year Target Kids and Families

Billy Mawhiney is a 38-year-old cooking instructor in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He works with local kids, teaching classes at Plum’s Cooking Company, which he describes as a local version of Williams-Sonoma. 

Mawhiney and his husband, Kyle Margheim, have been together for ten years but married for five. Margheim also works with kids, teaching them to swim at a local club that contracts with the school district. 

Three years ago, the couple decided they were ready for children of their own. 

The process for becoming foster parents was rigorous. Mawhiney recalled “Two months of classes, FBI background check, fingerprinting, home visits, physicals, safety checks” and more. 

In the end, it was worth it: they became foster parents to two children, both under the age of 2. One of the kids currently lives with them, but the couple can’t give their name or age to a reporter due to the strict privacy laws protecting foster kids. 

And this July, that child could potentially be taken away from the home, and Mawhiney and Margheim’s lives as parents would change forever. 

That’s because South Dakota just passed the first anti-LGBT law of 2017, a bill that takes effect in July and allows adoption and foster agencies that receive state funding to turn away families like Mawhiney’s if the agency cites religious objections to LGBT people. 

In Mawhiney’s case, that means that a foster child might not get access to a loving pair of parents who have spent most of their careers working with kids. It also means they may never be able to permanently adopt the child currently in their care. 

“I’m a Christian and I believe in freedom of religion,” said Mawhiney. “But it should not be used to deny kids homes, to deny vulnerable children loving parents.” 

While South Dakota’s is the first passed, over 100 bills have been proposed this year that aim to curb the civil rights of LGBT Americans. Dozens of those target children and families primarily. 

Four states are considering bills that would allow adoption and foster care agencies to opt out of anything that has to do with LGBT people. Fifteen states have so-called “bathroom bills” on the table, which would prevent transgender kids and teens from being able to access gender-appropriate restrooms, locker rooms, and other sex-segregated facilities at school. 

The federal government had promised to protect transgender students last year, but the Trump administration pulled back from defending Title IX protections for transgender kids on February 22nd, leaving an opening for such legislation to pass without federal interference.

March 14, 2017 – by MAry Emily O’Hara – nbc news.com

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