State-Funded Discrimination: Adoption Edition
Americans United
This year’s saga of state Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) bills is nearing the end, but has not come to a complete stop, yet. We continue to monitor RFRA bills in North Carolina and Michigan. Meanwhile, many other bills are moving through state legislatures and have been introduced in Congress that would allow religious beliefs to justify discrimination in adoption placements by state-funded, private adoption agencies.
The Michigan, Florida, and Texas, legislatures have introduced bills this session that would allow state-funded child-placing agencies to discriminate in placement based on the agencies’ religious or moral convictions. Adoption agencies could refuse to place children in otherwise stable homes because the parents seeking to adopt are unmarried, previously divorced, a same-sex couple, or adherents to a religion not practiced by the child-placing agency. This result hurts the children and the parents. Such an outcome could mean denying a child a stable home that would be in his or her best interests. Furthermore, it results in state-funded discrimination against the parents, which should never be tolerated.
(some state examples)
More
https://www.au.org/blogs/legislative/state-funded-discrimination-adoption-edition
