It’s only surprising if you weren’t paying attention. The Trump administration let slip last week that they are considering two paths to allowing discrimination against LGBTQ people in adoption and foster care, following up on what they’ve intended for a long time.
Last Friday, Axios reported, the Trump administration will either rescind the Obama administration rules that “banned adoption and foster-care agencies from receiving federal funding if they refused to work with same-sex couples,” or add “an explicit exemption for religious organizations.” These are only the latest details in a plan long pondered. Back in February, as astute Mombian readers will know, Trump announced at the National Prayer Breakfast that “My administration is working to ensure that faith-based adoption agencies are able to help vulnerable children find their forever families while following their deeply held beliefs.” And his 2020 budget, announced in March, includes the line item: “Protect the religious liberty of child welfare providers.”
While Axios reported only on the administration’s moves against “same-sex couples,” I think we can assume that any LGBTQ person, whether single or coupled with a person of any gender, would be targeted here. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights last week also announced it is rescinding an Obama administration policy that protected transgender patients from discrimination in health care; it seems no great leap to expect discrimination against them in child services as well.
Furthermore, LGBTQ people are not the only ones at risk. HHS this past January granted South Carolina a waiver from federal nondiscrimination policy after Miracle Hill Ministries, a Protestant foster care agency, turned away a Jewish woman from serving as a mentor to foster youth because she did not share Miracle Hill’s beliefs. The state’s Department of Children and Family Services told the agency it must comply with federal nondiscrimination policy or lose its contract, but Governor Henry McMaster (R) intervened and requested a waiver from HHS, which was granted.
Ten states (Alabama, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Virginia) also now allow such religious exemptions in child services. All but Alabama allow them to do so even if they receive taxpayer money.
As I wrote in March, several pieces of federal legislation could help stop such religiously based discrimination in child services. The Equality Act, which just passed the House, is meant to “prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation” in a wide variety of programs and services, including foster care and adoption. It faces an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled Senate, however. The Do No Harm Act, introduced in both houses February 28, would ensure that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, meant to prevent the government from “substantially burden[ing] a person’s exercise of religion,” cannot be used to allow discrimination.
Finally, the Every Child Deserves a Family Act, introduced with bipartisan support in the past five Congresses and expected to be reintroduced any day now, would withhold federal child welfare funds from states that discriminate against prospective parents or youth in care on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity (and for prospective parents, marital status), and allow redress in federal courts. The Every Child Deserves a Family (ECDF) campaign is building bipartisan support for the bill, and are asking specific members of Congress, with a track record of supporting the LGBTQ community, to become original cosponsors.
Here’s what you can do: Use the form on this page to see if your members of Congress are in the group that the ECDF campaign is targeting. If they are, you’ll be given an easy way to e-mail or phone them and ask them to cosponsor.
Yes, the Equality Act, which has already passed the House, would offer a wider range of nondiscrimination protections, including for adoption and foster care. At this point, however, we must pursue numerous options simultaneously to help children in need—and the Every Child Deserves a Family Act remains a key tool in our arsenal. Over 440,000 children are currently in foster care, over 120,000 waiting to be adopted, and nearly 20,000 are aging out of foster care each year without finding a permanent home, according to the latest federal data. Those are shameful numbers. No otherwise qualified person should be barred from serving as a foster or adoptive parent because of someone else’s religious beliefs.
Also, while the threat here is serious, it’s important to keep in mind: This is not a ban on LGBTQ people adopting or serving as foster parents. Many child service agencies are even doing specific outreach to LGBTQ people. Religious exemption laws will indeed negatively impact many, especially in regions where faith-based organizations provide most or all of the child placements—but this should not stop you from trying to form or grow your family through foster care or adoption. Take heart by reading about how Family Equality Council and Voice for Adoption are speaking out against discrimination in child services. If you feel you have been discriminated against in adoption or foster care because of your sexual orientation or gender identity, you can contact one of the hotlines run by LGBTQ legal organizations to discuss your options: