The Alliance for Progressive Values supports language proposed during the Kaine administration that would expand anti discrimination protections for those seeking to adopt from private services in Virginia. Today, nearly one third (32%) of children in the Virginia foster care system age out of the program, the worst percentage in the nation.  These young people are in desperate need of families to call their own, and there are men and women in the community who are ready and able to provide loving, supportive homes for these kids.  Age, marital status, disability, political or religious views or sexual orientation should not be a barrier in and of themselves.  That here in the state where the laws against interracial marriage were first cast down in the case Loving v. Virginia, the idea that bigotry and ignorance could still be a factor in deciding a child's placement in an appropriate home is particularly repugnant.   We believe that individual merit, not arbitrary preferences, should be the guiding principle in determining who is fit to adopt or provide foster-care.