Senate hopeful Beto O’Rourke demands gay adoption rights at Cedar Park rally

Honest Austin
Sep 3, 2018 · 3 min read

U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke declared this morning that as a senator he would not support the confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee who does not respect gay rights, adding that Texas adoption agencies should not be allowed to deny applications by gay couples.

O’Rourke’s remarks in support of gay adoption rights came at a campaign rally in Cedar Park, Texas, a town neighboring the state capital of Austin. He described adoption as a civil right for gay and lesbian couples. The Senate hopeful raised the topic while speaking about Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, who must be confirmed by a majority in the U.S. Senate.

Texas is “a state that desperately needs leadership on civil rights, where you can be fired from your job for being gay, a state with 30,000 kids in the foster care system and under the guise of religious liberty you can be denied the opportunity to adopt one of those children into your loving home if you are gay,” said O’Rourke.

“We need a civil rights — we need a senator who believes in the civil rights of every, single one of us, and will ensure that that is a minimum threshold for the next supreme court justice,” he added.

Nothing in the Texas Family Code prohibits gay adoption, and all adults are eligible to adopt whether they are single or married. But under a bill passed into law last year, H.B. 3859, Texas child welfare providers are allowed to deny adoptions of children in their care based on “sincerely held religious beliefs.” O’Rourke’s remarks today likely referred to this state law.

About a quarter of child placing agencies that work with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) are religiously affiliated, according to earlier press reports. These groups are private foster or adoption agencies that find homes for children and then transfer them from the custodianship of the state to the custody of adoptive parents.

When it was passed into law last year, H.B. 2859 was condemned by gay advocacy group GLAAD, which said: “This law is not about the best interests of Texans or of children, but about forwarding a political agenda to codify the permission to discriminate against LGBTQ Texans into state law… a child can now be denied the chance to live with a deserving family simply because they are LGBTQ.”

On the other hand, the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, which led advocacy for H.B. 3859, said that the bill allowed Catholic Charities to continue working in the state after it had already closed foster care services in California, the District of Columbia, Illinois and Massachusetts when lawmakers there declined to pass laws allowing them to deny adoptions on the basis of religious objections.

Gay marriage was not allowed in Texas until the 2015 Supreme Court ruling Obergefell v. Hodges, which authorized same-sex marriage nationwide. A 2005 amendment to the Texas Constitution had defined marriage as “the union of one man and one woman” and also prohibited local jurisdictions from recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states.

The current Republican Party of Texas platform calls for overturning of Obergefell v. Hodges. It says, “We believe this decision, overturning the Texas law prohibiting same-sex marriage in Texas, has no basis in the Constitution and should be reversed, returning jurisdiction over the definition of marriage to the states. The Governor and other elected officials of the State of Texas should assert our Tenth Amendment right and reject the Supreme Court ruling.”

In his campaign speech today, O’Rourke also touched on climate change, Roe v. Wade, criminal justice reform, child separations, and the border wall. He told a cheering crowd that he is “not against anyone, not against anything, but for each other, for this country.” O’Rourke never mentioned his opponent Ted Cruz during his remarks but he did speak critically about President Donald Trump, whom he attacked for inhumane immigration policies, derogatory comments about Mexicans, and for “collusion” with Russia in his election bid in 2016.

Honest Austin

Written by

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade