Map

State Religious Exemption Laws

State religious exemption laws permit people, churches, non-profit organizations, and sometimes corporations to seek exemptions from state laws that burden their religious beliefs. These laws have recently been used as a defense when businesses discriminate against or refuse service to LGBTQ customers and same-sex couples.

Map

Other Parental Recognition Laws

Donor insemination laws apply when women in a same-sex relationship have a child through donor insemination, granting legal parenting rights to the non-biological mother as well as the birth mother. De facto parenting laws apply when someone is raising a child but is not a legal parent of that child. De Facto parenting laws provide these parents with some limited legal rights to the child.

Report

Relationships at Risk: Why We Need to Update State Parentage Laws to Protect Children and Families

June 2023 - This report explains how the current patchwork of parentage laws across the country – many of which haven’t been updated in decades – leaves LGBTQ parents and their children vulnerable.

Report

The High Stakes in the Fulton Case: Undermining the Vital Role of Child Welfare Laws & Regulations in Protecting America’s Children

August 2020 - This report examines the potential outcomes of the Fulton v. City of Philadelphia case, which could create a license to discriminate throughout the child welfare system.

Policy Brief

Kids Pay the Price: How Discriminatory Adoption and Foster Care Laws Harm Children

January 2019  - This policy brief, authored by MAP and the Family Equality Council, in partnership with the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) and the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), offers a snapshot of the impact of discriminatory foster and adoption laws on the thousands of children waiting to be adopted in the states where these laws currently exist, the high stakes of passing similar laws in other states, and offers recommendations for supporting children in care.

Report

Putting Children at Risk: How Efforts to Undermine Marriage Equality Harm Children

June 2018 – Authored by MAP and the Family Equality Council Putting Children at Risk: How Efforts to Undermine Marriage Equality Harm Children highlights how recent efforts to undermine marriage equality and protections for LGBT families pose a profound threat to the children in these families.

Infographic

LGBTQ Youth in the Child Welfare System

February 2018 - This infographic outlines the overrepresentation of LGBTQ youth in the child welfare system and the criminal justice system, and their experiences while involved with these systems.

Policy Brief

License to Discriminate: Texas House Bill 3859

April 2017 - Texas House Bill 3859 would allow child-placement agencies to impose their beliefs on and discriminate against children and families while providing taxpayer-funded services. Agencies would be allowed to make placement decisions based on their religious beliefs, hurting the more than 28,000 children in the care of the state, including nearly 7,000 children awaiting adoption.

Policy Brief

License to Discriminate: How Religious Exemption Legislation For Social Services Agencies Harms Children

THIS REPORT HAS BEEN UPDATED
March 2017 - Read about religious exemption legislation that would allow child placement and adoption agencies to discriminate against loving families while providing government services paid for with taxpayer money. These laws enable adoption agencies and their workers to reject parents who don’t share the agency’s or worker’s religious beliefs, legally prioritizing those beliefs over the best interests of children.

Policy Brief

License to Discriminate: South Dakota Senate Bill 149

March 2017 - Senate Bill 149 allows child-placement agencies to make placement and child treatment decisions based on their own religious beliefs, as opposed to following standards that advance the best interests of children. SB 149 would allow child-placement agencies to impose their beliefs on others and to discriminate against children and families, all while providing services paid for with taxpayer money.

Report

LGBT Policy Spotlight: State and Federal Religious Exemptions

September 2015 - LGBT Policy Spotlight: State and Federal Religious Exemptions and the LGBT Community examines how state and federal religious exemption laws are being used to harm a broad range of people, interfere with law enforcement, and undermine the rule of law.

Report

Securing Legal Ties for Children Living in LGBT Families

July 2012 - Learn how the lack of legal recognition for LGBT families hurts children—and how state policymakers can draft, pass and enact laws that protect all children, including those living with LGBT parents and in other contemporary family structures.

Report

An Ally’s Guide to Talking About Adoption by LGBT Parents

June 2012 - Focus conversations about parenting, adoption and LGBT parents on how they create loving, stable homes for kids and help ensure that children have the nurturing environment that allows them to thrive and succeed.

Report

Strengthening Economic Security for Children Living in LGBT Families

January 2012 - MAP, Family Equality Council, the Center for American Progress and the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) report on how inequitable laws hurt children with LGBT parents and contribute to higher rates of child poverty.

Report

Issue Brief: How DOMA Harms Children

November 2011 - MAP, Family Equality Council and the Center for American Progress partner with the Human Rights Campaign and Freedom to Marry to examine how DOMA denies children basic rights and safety nets—just because their parents are gay.

Report

All Children Matter: How Legal and Social Inequalities Hurt LGBT Families: Condensed Version

October 2011 - This 34-page “digest” version of All Children Matter provides a high-level understanding of how legal and social inequalities hurt children of LGBT families—and how children have become collateral damage of laws designed to hurt LGBT people.

Video

Video: All Children Matter

October 2011 - This 60-second video highlights some of the specific legal and social inequalities—from the denial of access to a parent’s health insurance coverage to the denial of legal protections if a parent becomes disabled or dies—that hurt children of LGBT parents.