Virginia Regulatory Town Hall View Comments

9/30/11 3:51 pm

Commenter: J. Martin

Standing against discrimination and in support of children

I stand in support of the original text of the proposed rule that prohibited licensee's from discriminating based on race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, political beliefs, sexual orientation, disability, or family status.

The sole factor a licensee should be focused on when placing a child with an adoptive family and/or in a foster home is the child’s best interest. The original text of the rule helped insure this was accomplished by excluding the irrelevant factors of prospective parent’s race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, political beliefs, sexual orientation, disability, or family status. The fact that prospective and/or current licensees desire to strike this language is evidence that they are placing their own views of these irrelevant factors ahead of the child's best interest.

Virginia jurisprudence has a long history of putting the best interest of its children and incapacitated citizen first in custody disputes, guardianship cases and legal matter; the proposed rule should not undue that history by effectively agreeing that a prospective parents immutable and/or irrelevant characteristics are more important to the Commonwealth than the child’s best interest.

CommentID: 19134