She fell in love with a woman in 1998. Missouri's anti-LGBTQ laws nearly took away her kids

Nancy Fowler almost lost custody of her kids 24 years ago, because Missouri laws considered her sexual orientation as evidence she was an unfit parent. Now she worries the country is moving backward.
Two experiences, separated by 24 years, stand out in Nancy Fowler’s mind when she thinks about same-sex marriage. First, there’s her own marriage to a woman, a union now codified in federal law under the Respect for Marriage Act signed earlier this month.

And then there was the moment in 1998, when Fowler’s divorce attorney told her that she would likely lose custody of her three young children because Missouri law considered her sexual orientation a mark against her — and potentially evidence that she was an unfit parent. .At the time, sex between gay people, intimacy itself, was criminalized under the state’s now-repealed sodomy law.