The right to parent — one of the most painful and emotionally bloody battlegrounds of the GLBT civil rights movement. Whether between ourselves over custody of biological children, the medical community over our right to alternative forms of conception, or the system over our right to adopt and foster, we have been engaged in a mighty fight. Proudly, we can say that this is a battle we are winning. For example, on Aug. 4 the California State Supreme Court chose to protect the rights of both partners in a gay/lesbian couple to establish a legal relationship with the couple’s children. Across the county, courts have upheld our rights to parent, foster and adopt. Many of these successes have been featured in our community papers as well as the mainstream media. However, one of the key players of this unfolding drama has remained hidden and overlooked.

The opening scene of the Denzel Washington movie Antwone Fisher depicts a young boy surrounded by adults who appear to take great pleasure in his presence, while before him stretches a 20-foot table piled high with delicious, beautiful food. I knew, before the movie itself asserted the child’s reality, that this scene was the dream of a foster child. The fantasy of adult appreciation and bountiful food perfectly illustrates the severe emotional and material deprivation experienced by most foster children in San Diego today.

In the midst of incredible forward movement regarding GLBT parental rights, I believe we are now obligated to turn our attention towards the children who need parents. Every morning in San Diego over 7,000 children wake up to a home without their mom and dad. They have lost their biological families due to abuse, drugs and alcohol, domestic violence, homophobia, parental illness and death, or neglect. Paradoxically, every day in San Diego thousands of GLBT community members leave work for comfortable homes and full refrigerators, each possessing the ability to teach a child that love does not equal pain and abandonment.

Don’t get me wrong, many of these children have been severely damaged, both by their families and by the system that works to help them. They are not easy to love. They have grown suspicious of kindness, mistrustful of generosity, and afraid of love. But, underneath it all, they desperately want to be accepted for who they are, no matter what. Sound familiar? Remember the bewildering, lonely pain of your own adolescence?

Even closer to home, research tells us that GLBT youth may be the largest minority group of foster children — up to 40 percent may be GLBT. San Diego County also has its share of HIV-positive foster children. Often these children have lost their homes because of their identity or HIV status. Who better to care for them than us?

Now, given that our right to parent has been repeatedly affirmed by the legal system, we have the opportunity to take care of our own. As GSDBA Director Joyce Marieb said at the GLBT Community Coalition Breakfast on Aug. 15, “We have more disposable income and more loyalty.” I believe it is time to direct our income and loyalty toward GLBT and HIV-positive adolescents who have come to believe that they are not worthy of having a family and that acceptance by caring adults is a fantasy created by Hollywood.

Through a grant from the GLBT Funding Partnership, Walden Family Services began to specifically work with GLBT parents to provide homes for San Diego’s 7,000 foster children and created the GLBT Foster Care Network. After two years of working in the community, they still struggle to recruit foster parents. Now that we have spent thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting for the right to parent, we cannot ignore the children who desperately need us. Our community is gifted with an abundance of parenting essentials — love, commitment, and resources. I ask you, what are you doing with your disposable income and intense loyalty? When will the time come that we fight as hard for our most vulnerable and valuable community members — abandoned and rejected GLBT youth — as we fight for ourselves? They are our future.

If you are ready to explore the most difficult, most challenging, and most rewarding commitment you will ever make, call Walden Family Services at (619) 584-5777 and ask for Marie. There are 7,000 kids waiting for your call.