Will Oklahoma, Kansas, and Colorado become the next states to allow adoption and foster care agencies to discriminate against LGBTQ prospective parents, youth, and others who don’t align with their religious beliefs?
A committee of the Colorado Senate advanced a bill Monday that would allow just that, although the Colorado Springs Gazette says “the bill is dead on arrival” in the House, where the Democrats have a majority.
The Kansas Legislature this week returned from recess to debate a broad adoption bill that had passed the House but been amended by the Senate to include religious exemption language that would allow discrimination. If the House doesn’t reconsider it, it must be resolved in conference committee. HRC President Chad Griffin spoke against the bill at the Kansas Statehouse yesterday, and a coalition of more than 80 technology companies, including Apple and Google, have sent a letter to the Legislature in opposition to it.
And the Oklahoma House passed a bill already approved by the Senate that would allow private child-service agencies that do not receive federal or state funds to discriminate against those who “violate the agency’s written religious or moral convictions or policies.” The restriction to private agencies was added by the House, so the bill must go to back to the Senate before going to the governor’s desk. Here’s what Oklahoma native and Family Equality Council CEO The Rev. Stan Sloan had to say about it in The Oklahoman. In particular, he addresses the argument that without such a bill, faith-based adoption agencies will have to close or won’t come to the state, and this will lower rates of adoption and foster placements. That’s simply untrue, he says:
As a result of embracing nondiscrimination into their laws, these states [Massachusetts, Illinois and California] have seen no “tragic results.” Instead, adoption and foster care placements have remained steady or improved. By contrast, states that have passed bills similar to SB 1140 have seen their adoption rates worsen. Don’t take my word for it — look it up on the federal government’s website where all states’ foster care numbers are compiled and reported.
Family Equality’s former Chief Policy Officer, Emily Hecht-McGowan, also addressed this argument in an interview I did with her in 2017.
Seven states already have religious exemption laws that apply to child services, as I detailed in a piece last February. The Every Child Deserves a Family Campaign, organized by Family Equality and the Center for American Progress, is working to defeat further bills in a variety of ways, including the “Welcoming All Families” initiative to collect stories from LGBTQ adoptive and foster parents, current or former adoptees, and foster youth, child welfare providers, faith leaders, and allies that they can share with state and federal elected officials and use in media placements, videos, and reports. Check them out—and do what you can to spread awareness and stop these harmful bills.