From NCLR:
November is National Adoption Month, and there are currently more LGBT parents waiting to adopt than there are children in the foster system. Unfortunately, some LGBT couples are denied the right to parent—and children are denied a home—because of discriminatory state policies governing same-sex adoption, and policies that allow adoption agencies to give preference to different-sex couples. Anti-LGBT bias and discrimination in the courts further leads to LGBT parents being denied custody of the children they already have, or being forced to make the devestating and untenable choice between retaining custody and coming out.
Right now, as many as 6 million children in the United States have an LGBT parent. LGBT families are geographically, racially, and ethnically diverse, and can be found in every community across the country. They are more likely to be binational, which often raises an additional set of challenges. Research tells us that children raised by LGBT parents fare equally well as children raised by non-LGBT parents. However, only 19 states and D.C. permit same-sex couples to jointly adopt, and only13 states allow second-parent adoptions. The remaining states create legal quagmires for families that mean children are left unprotected by the law when a parent separates from their partner or when one parent dies. These laws also discriminate against LGBT families who want to adopt, leaving them with no recourse to do so in their home state.
Read more via: NCLR