To the Forum:

I am a registered Va. voter.

Currently, Virginia's State Board of Social Services is considering whether to approve regulations prohibiting adoption agencies from discriminating against prospective adoptive parents based on gender, age, religion, political beliefs, sexual orientation, disability, or family status.

There are more than 1,000 children in the Va. foster care system waiting for adoptive homes, and yet well qualified parents are being turned away, based on factors such as sexual orientation.

This past spring, the Board of Social Services bowed to pressure from the state Attorney General's office and elimintated these anti-discrimination provisions from the proposed rules.

Decisions about prospective parents should be based soley on the best interest of the child, not on discriminatory factors unrelated to parenting.

When agencies act in the stead of the state, they should be bound by principals of non-discrimination even if they are private agencies.