In order for the Regulatory Board to fulfill its responsibilities to Virginian children and citizens, it must discriminate only between fit guardians and unfit guardians. Anything else risks the development of the children it is tasked to protect, and offends the human dignity of citizens denied the chance to adopt or foster for reasons unrelated to their abilities to raise a child in a healthy, loving environment.

Furthermore, if a foster or adoptive agency, receiving certification and grant money from the state or federal government, argues that some special classification categorically causes a person to be unfit to raise children- be it religious affiliation, gender identity, or sexual orientation- that agency is insufficiently committed to the welfare of children, and should lose its funding and governmental endorsement.

Case in point: a great deal of this controversy surrounds non-heterosexuals seeking to adopt children. However, sociological data has demonstrated repeatedly that non-heterosexual parents raise children who are just as socially well adjusted, academically quick, and emotionally healthy as children raised by heterosexuals. If an agency ignores or denies the myriad studies that conclude this, its organizers are willfully denying reality in order to pursue an ideological campaign against people who wish only to have a family and provide for a child who would otherwise be a parentless ward of the state.

It is unconscienable for arbitrary discrimination in such a vital institution to persist, let alone with the legal endorsement of a regulatory body. I urge you, with all my heart and reason, to discriminate in the only way that meaningfully impacts the foster and adoptive children you are tasked to protect; by the ability of the applicant to provide a safe, financially secure, loving, supportive home. All other distinctions are irrelevant.

Sincerely,

Kathryn C. McNeal