Last week Rep. Pete Stark of California introduced the Every Child Deserves a Family Act which denies federal funding to states with adoption programs that discriminate on the basis of marital status, sexual orientation or gender identity. From the Washington Blade:

Stark said in an interview that he introduced the legislation, H.R. 3827, in part because thousands of children each year “age out” of the child welfare system without finding homes.

“We got 25,000 kids a year maturing out of the welfare system without permanent foster care or adoptive care, and the prospects of those children having a successful adult life are diminished greatly,” he said. “These are kids who end up in the criminal justice system, or end up homeless.”

States with explicit restrictions on adoption that the pending legislation would affect are Utah, Florida, Arkansas, Nebraska and Mississippi. Florida, for example, has a statute specifically prohibiting gays from adopting, and in Arkansas, voters last year approved Act 1, which prevents unmarried co-habitating couples, including same-sex partners, from adopting children.

The legislation, Stark said, also would restrict funds for states where restrictions are put in place by agencies, individual social workers or judges, or where restrictions are part of the common law of the state.

For states that don’t comply with the law, federal officials could withhold from the states funds provided to them for child welfare services. The bill also calls.

This is very good news, and it’s likely to create quite a curfuffle among the religious right, and Catholics in particular. Take Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for example, who appeared on Pat Robertson’s 700 Club last week to pimp his new book and said this about gays and adoption: “We’re not going to allow gay people to adopt children. That’s against nature. It’s against nature’s God! But they won’t stop!”

If H.R. 3827 passes, perhaps it will be the event that finally makes Bill’s head explode. We can dream can’t we?

Welcome to a new segment called Tuesdays with TED. For those of you don’t know TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, and is a yearly, invitation-only conference that brings together “the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers” to talk about the issues they are most passionate about. Fortunately for those of us who aren’t invited, the talks are available online.

So starting today and on every Tuesday I will highlight a TED Talk from their massive video library, not necessarily because it may be socially or culturally relevant to what’s going on that particular day (though it just might), but sometimes because it may be relevant and important to me, and hopefully to you as well.

This week’s first segment is called Do Schools kill Creativity? by Sir Ken Robinson, a creativity expert who makes the case for changing our education system so that it nurtures and not undermines creativity. This is an issue close to my heart. Enjoy.