Last week a bill was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives proposing federal-level punishment for states that ban homosexual couples and non-married individuals from adopting children.

Touted as a measure to help more children find homes, Democratic California Rep. Pete Stark’s “Every Child Deserves a Family Act” recommends that states allowing foster care placements only into married heterosexual households be deprived of federal child welfare funds.

The law would have an impact on Utah, Florida, Arkansas, Nebraska and Mississippi, which either explicitly restrict adoption to heterosexual couples, or restrict it to married couples while not recognizing same-sex “marriage.”

“It is unacceptable that states are denying children healthy, loving homes simply because of a potential parent’s sexual orientation or marital status,” said Rep. Stark in a press release last week.  “The Every Child Deserves a Family Act ensures that the best interests of children are the only criteria for finding adoptive and foster parents.”

The bill reads: “In order to open more homes to foster children, child welfare agencies should work to eliminate sexual orientation, gender identification, and marital status discrimination and bias in adoption and foster care recruitment, selection, and placement procedures.” It also authorizes those who claim their bid for adoption was compromised by such factors to sue in a federal court.

The measure is slated for the House Ways & Means committee, whose website shows no hearings scheduled for the bill.  Stark is the bill’s only sponsor.

Major homosexualist lobbies such as the Human Rights Commission have not commented on the bill.

Click here to read the text of the bill.

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Representatives of European Catholic Bishops’ Conferences Denounce Homosexual Adoption and Euthanasia
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09071711.html