Hope for foster kids: Catholic Charities of Boston has decided to get out of the foster care business rather than be required to place children with gay and lesbian parents. But many foster care agencies are doing just the opposite.

When Mary Keane began doing volunteer work with gay and lesbian teens in New York City 10 years ago, she knew little about the plight of homeless youth in the foster care system. But after working at a residential treatment center with over 200 youths, she made a life-changing decision.

Keane, now 57, gave up her studio apartment in the city, used her retirement money for a down payment on an old Victorian house in suburban Yonkers, and renovated it as a 12-bedroom foster home for girls. "My original intention was to just take lesbian teens so that they could grow up in a place where they could be who they wanted to be," says Keane. But when she asked the agency she was working with if it had any lesbian teens, she was told it did not.

Years later Keane, who went on to foster many young girls and is now the Family Permanency Advocate at You Gotta Believe, a New York-based adoption placement agency for teenagers, learned that officials at the foster care agency she had dealt with--like many around the country at the time--were probably homophobic. They may have had lesbian teens but were nervous about placing them with a lesbian adult.

Even today, gays and lesbians considering becoming foster parents to one or more of the over 500,000 children in need of a home may be welcomed or dissuaded by social workers depending on where they go. The issue came to a head this spring when Catholic Charities in Boston decided to get out of the adoption and foster placement business rather than abide by a state law requiring them to consider gay and lesbian parents. "It is truly a shame," says Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Family Pride Coalition and a former Massachusetts resident. "For political reasons Catholic Charities sacrificed children in need of loving and stable homes."

And gays and lesbians are the ones who often take special-needs or older children, Chrisler adds. "Our community has a real ability to serve the needs of these children."

But Catholic Charities may now be in the minority as a growing number of agencies wake up to the reality that they need any and all potential foster homes, including those led by gays and lesbians. "In the past, we have not put the spotlight on LGBT families and included gays in our campaign," says Virginia Pryor, chairwoman of National Foster Care Month, a partnership of 14 agencies across the country that raises awareness about the issue during May. This year, however, the organization advertised in the gay media, and next year officials plan to use gay family images in their media campaign and Web site. "We need to abolish the idea that there is only one type of family," says Pryor, who is manager of strategic alliances at Seattle-based Casey Family Programs.

The Child Welfare League of America, the nation's oldest and largest organization of child welfare advocates, partnered with Lambda Legal in 2003 to focus on making child welfare systems more welcoming to LGBT people. "What people need to understand is that this is not a gay rights issue. If we say that, we'll lose," says Rob Woronoff, the league's director of LGBTQ services. "This is a child welfare issue."

Laura Newman is the LGBT liaison in the office of the Westchester County, N.Y., executive. Already familiar with the foster and adoptive parenting network sponsored by the Center Kids foster programat the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center in New York City, Newman wanted to bring similar foster parent recruitment efforts to her county. Earlier this year she brought together the county government, the Westchester Department of Social Services, and private agencies. "We are working together to publish materials that are LGBT-inclusive," says Newman. "Gays are already included by law, but we want to make a public statement."

A growing body of research is showing that reaching out to gays and lesbians as potential foster parents is highly beneficial. Much of this research was presented at Real Families, Real Facts, the first research symposium on LGBT-headed families. The event was held in Philadelphia in May and was sponsored by the Family Pride Coalition and the University of Pennsylvania.

A. Chris Downs of Casey Family Programs and Steven E. James, chairman of psychology and counseling programs at Vermont's Goddard College, presented "Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Foster Parents: Lessons of the Field" after surveying gay, lesbian, and bisexual foster parents. "The research shows that GLB foster parents are very committed to doing right by these kids, and that it is a stepping-stone to adoption," says James, who with his partner has adopted two children. "The statistics show that there is no good reason to discriminate against GLB foster parents other than prejudice."

Katherine Kuvalanka and Sarah Kaye, doctoral students in the department of family services at the University of Maryland in College Park, have found that when a state has a law restricting adoptions by gays, a larger percentage of children languish in that state's foster care system. Whether or not the laws are a deciding factor has yet to be determined. "But it seems like common sense that if you restrict the pool of adoptive parents, then the kids in foster care have a smaller chance of being adopted," says Kuvalanka.

Florida's law banning all adoptions by gays didn't stop Steve Lofton and Roger Croteau from taking in Bert, now 15, as a foster child five years ago. The couple, who now live in Portland, Ore., with their five children, lost a high-profile battle to have the law changed. And Florida could, in theory, still place Bert with another family for adoption.

But despite all the uncertainty and the losing court battles, Croteau would still become a new foster parent today. "We could have led a much more decadent life without kids," he says, "but the bottom line is that we are able to provide a relatively privileged life for five kids that they wouldn't have had otherwise."

Kuhr is editor at large of Boston-based LGBT newspaper In Newsweekly.