Hard Evidence

"The Catholic Charities partnership may even result in more LGBT families adopting children than before. 'We're about the gayest adoption agency in the country," (Family Builders Executive Director) Jacobs told the B.A.R., noting that it was important for her organization to make sure Catholic Charities "really knew who we were, and that in our own adoption program more than half the families we serve are LGBT families.'" –Bay Area Reporter, August 10, 2006.

Whether anyone at the Archdiocese or Catholic Charities knew, or cared, the "workaround" they so proudly trumpeted in August 2006 was doomed from the start--at least if one even pretends to take Church teaching seriously.

The reason Catholic Charities was directed to stop doing adoptions was because it had placed five children with five LGBT households from 2000-2005. The Vatican insisted this stop--that placing children in LGBT housholds was incompatible with Catholic teaching. This provoked the city and state to threaten to withdraw funding from Catholic Charities.

Proponents of the "workaround" claimed it would allow Catholic Charities to be faithful to Church teaching while still being able to receive city/state funding. But, as the documents below show, that was impossible.

When Catholic Charities began supplying staffing to Family Builders by Adoptions, Family Builders by Adoption was already contractually obligated to the City and County of San Francisco to "Increasing the number of children adopted by Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) adults." Catholic Charities was thus staffing and/or funding an organization which was obligated by contract to actions that were directly opposed to Church teaching.

Below are official documents from the City and County of San Francisco and from Catholic Charities and Family Builders' webpages. They are PDF's that have been saved as jpegs. The yellow highlighting and the red annotations are ours.

Step 1) Mayor Newsom's March 27, 2006 Press Release, outlining what he wants. He says the Human Services Agency will soon be issuing a "Request for Proposals" that will include "recruiting lesbian and gay adoptive parents."

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Step 2) Following the Mayor's directive, on May 15, 2006 "Request for Proposals #309" is issued"

 

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Step 3) On July 24, 2006, this contract between Family Builders by Adoption (FBA), and the City and County of San Francisco is signed. FBA is "the winning respondent" to RFP#309. Hence, they are contractually obligated to "Increasing the number of children adopted by Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) adults."

The contract term begins August 1, 2006. Note that date.

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Step 4) The very next day, CCCYO announces it's "strategic partnership" with FBA. But it's not a "partnership."
Partnership implies give and take. What CCCYO does is supply staffing and/or $250,000 annually to FBA.
Those staff and assets are committed to an organization that is bound by contract to "Increasing the number of children adopted by Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) adults."

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Step 4 continued) On August 27, 2006 the San Francisco Chronicle prints an informative article about the arrangement. Excerpts below. All emphases are added:

“Catholic agency finds way out of adoption ban. Alliance with other groups gets around same-sex parent issue”

“In an adroit end-run against a Vatican ban on granting adoptions to same-sex couples, Catholic Charities of San Francisco will launch a new project in coming weeks that experts say will lead to the placement of hundreds of foster children around the state every year. . .

‘The Lord works in mysterious ways,’ quipped San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty, . . . who was a consultant to Catholic Charities while the adoption strategy was being crafted.

Next month, the collaboration formally begins between Catholic Charities CYO and California Kids Connection, a statewide adoption exchange run by the Oakland based nonprofit Family Builders by Adoption. The two agencies will work in conjunction with the state Department of Social Services, which oversees about 82,000 foster children.

"When Catholic Charities first approached us (said Jill Jacobs, Director of Family Builders by Adoption), I was very hesitant. My organization has a long history of serving the gay, lesbian and transgender community. It was really ironic -- I had to make sure that our integrity and values were not compromised.''

"We were undeniably told to stop doing direct placements to same-sex couples,'' said Executive Director Brian Cahill. "But our new archbishop, George Niederauer, who had barely unpacked, gave us -- to his ever-lasting credit -- the opportunity to craft a solution that would be consistent with church teaching and also faithful to our mission. This place started with adoptions -- how could we ever consider not doing them?''

The ensuing solution commits $250,000 of the agency's resources annually -- a more than fourfold increase of its previous $60,000 annual commitment to adoption placements.

"There will be critics who say that kids will still be placed with same-sex couples,'' said Cahill, who is planning "an aggressive recruitment'' of potential adoptive parents among the archdiocese's parishes. "That is true -- the largest potential number of adoptive parents in the foster care system are gay and lesbian couples. But this is what we are supposed to be doing. This is the work of the church.”

“But having the resources of Catholic Charities will more than double our staff, and it will probably quadruple the number of children who are posted. And when the children's pictures are posted, they usually get adopted” Jacobs said.

Step 5) Now the "Adoptions" pages of both CCCYO and the City and County of San Francisco direct people to FBA.

Step 6) The City and County of San Francisco likes Family Builders/Catholic Charities' work. They extend the contract.

Step 7) "Adoptionsf" emerges. On May 21, 2007, the San Francisco Chronicle reports on the City's new adoption outreach program "adoptionSF." But "adoptionSF" is a website and advertising campaign, nothing more. The organization you reach if you call or email "adoptionSF" is Family Builders by Adoption--staffed/funded by Catholic Charities.

Below is page five of the Chronicle's May 21 article "SF's Same-Sex Couples Asked to adopt Foster Kids.". The full article is here. The page shown has an informative chart. Close reading shows that CCCYO was involved in the placing of 14 children in LGBT housholds from 2006-2007. That is three times the number of children CCCYO placed in LGBT  households in the entire preceding five years, and it was those earlier placements that created the need for the "partnership" to begin with.

Adoption SF's Outreach: Here are AdoptionSF's, (that is, Family Builders/CCCYO's) 2008 outreach efforts. Five persons/couples are shown. Only one is a natural family.

More outreach: AdoptionSF, (that is, Family Builders/CCCYO's) targeted demographic. Here is the "Gay Pride" issue of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Also note below the presence of "Donna Sachet": male transvestite, CCCYO Entertainer, and same-sex marriage activist.

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Still more outreach:

AdoptionSF's (that is, Family Builders/CCCYO's) targeted demographic.

A float in the 2008 "Gay Pride" parade. Note the presence of the token "breeder." Openly homosexual San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty allowed Family Builders/adoptionSF to use his float in 2006 and in 2008.

 

According to the San Francisco Chronicle article cited above, Supervisor Dufty was a "consultant" to CCCYO when the deal between FBA and CCCYO was struck.

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Conclusion:

How successful has FBA (staffed by CCYO) been in fulfilling its contracted mandate of "Increasing the number of children adopted by Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) adults"?

Here's what Jill Jacobs thinks, from the July 17, 2008 issue of the "Bay Area Reporter" [bracketed interpolations are ours]:

"Family Builders, which took over adoptions in San Francisco after Catholic Charities bowed out [!] over the gay adoption issue, said that about 80 percent of the families the agency works with in the city are LGBT. The agency places a total of about 50-60 children a year throughout the Bay Area, she [Jill Jacobs, Executive Director of Family Builders] added."

And here's what Mayor Gavin Newsom thinks. This is his October 2007 "Accountability Report," grading Family Builders by Adoption (that is CCCYO) on how well they are fulfilling his directive of "Increasing the number of children adopted by Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) adults.":