Family Equality Council has launched the collaborative Allies for Adoption campaign in honor of children in foster care, parents who are LGBT, and National Adoption Month.

In most states in the US, it is illegal for LGBT people and couples to adopt children, while 400,000 kids remain in the country's foster care system. To challenge the foster care crisis and advocate for LGBT parents, the national organization Family Equality Council is working with major child welfare and social justice groups on a campaign that furthers their mission of supporting, representing, and connecting parents with their parents to create millions of families. Allies for Adoption is taking a multifaceted approach to rendering equality for LGBT families that combines advocacy, awareness, and education.

The Every Child Deserves a Family Act is a bipartisan bill that seeks to eliminate state laws, policies, practices, and procedures that discriminate against LGBT people hoping to become adoptive or foster parents. Allies for Adoption hopes to bring attention to the bill, which is trans inclusive. At present, only six states prevent anti-LGBT discrimination against potential foster parents. LGBT people and couples are allowed to adopt in just 19 states and DC, while as few as 13 states and DC allow second-parent adoptions. The campaign will educate people on these troubling statistics and more.

Using social media to engage the LGBT community and its supporters, Allies for Adoption has shareable graphics and interactive dashboard called 50 States of Adoption that displays the difficulties faced by children and hopeful parents-to-be as a result of exclusionary laws and policies. Furthermore, Faces of Adoption shares the stories of LGBT families who have been protected and strengthened by inclusive adoption laws.

"We can solve America's shortage of adoptive parents if we would simply allow LGBT people to adopt in all 50 states," said Gabriel Blau, Executive Director of the Family Equality Council. "There are five times the number of prospective parents who are LGBT than there are youth in foster care waiting for a home. Right now there are children waiting to find a forever family, and until we knock down barriers to adoption by LGBT people in every state, we are failing them as a nation."