The Michigan House of Representatives passed a bill that allows adoption agencies to refuse to place children in any situation that violates their "written religious or moral convictions or policies." A second bill passed at the same time forbids the state from considering any such policies when making decisions regarding contracts or funding. Obviously, this is aimed primarily at religious adoption agencies that would refuse to place children with gay couples or individuals, or perhaps even with single people, or people of a different faith. The first law states:
A child placing agency is not required to perform, assist, counsel, recommend, facilitate, refer, or participate in a placement that violates the child placing agency's written religious or moral convictions or policies. A state or local government entity may not deny a child placing agency a grant, contract, or participation in a government program because of the child placing agency's objection to performing, assisting, counseling, recommending, facilitating, referring, or participating in a placement that violates the child placing agency's written religious or moral convictions or policies.
I actually don't have a big problem with the first part, as long as there are other adoption agencies that do perform and assist in such adoptions. I'm generally not in favor of forcing religious groups to do something that violates their beliefs even when I find those beliefs appalling and absurd, and I'm even an advocate of RFRA laws that provide religious exemptions from generally applicable laws in the absence of a narrowly tailored policy that serves a compelling state interest. While I do believe that placing foster children with loving families, gay or straight, is a compelling state interest, if there are other adoption agencies that do perform such adoptions, I don't think there is any good reason not to grant a religious exemption in such situations.
I do, however, have a problem with the second part of the law, which forbids state and local government agencies from considering such policies when handing out contracts or funding. Giving religious adoption agencies an exemption from non-discrimination requirements does not mean that it should be legally required to give them funding. Indeed, funding groups that engage in such discrimination may well run afoul of both statutory (depending on the state discrimination laws) and constitutional law.
If the state government is handing out contracts to adoption agencies and is choosing between a religious agency that refuses to place a child with a gay couple or individual (or an interfaith couple, for example) and one whose policies place a child with any qualified person or couple regardless of such considerations, there is no question that the contract should go to the agency that will place the most children with the most qualified parents. And any policy which forbids a government agency from making such an obvious choice is building irrationality into policy decisions.
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First it was money laundering. Then our politicians graduated to policy laundering. Now we're onto bigotry laundering. What a wonderful world we live in...
Ed - The more of your commentary I read, the more I find to like.
Although I'm skeptical that a good case can be made that "placing foster children with loving families, gay or straight, is a compelling state interest," I agree completely that public monies should not be supporting activities that are clearly and explicitly discriminatory. This is the other side of the freedom of conscience coin.
Although I'm skeptical that a good case can be made that "placing foster children with loving families, gay or straight, is a compelling state interest,"]
I think it easily can. No stats in front of me but it is well known that kids who spend their minority as wards of the state rather than with a family are a hell of lot more likely to continue their institutionalisation into adulthood through the prison system. Besides the fact that adoption removes the burden of support from the state.
The big kicker is the bit about whether there will be any other agencies who *will* allow such adoptions.
My husband and I are middleclass heterosexuals with no criminal history. The things that led adoption agencies to reject us i15 years ago ncluded things like our age (in our late 30s at that time), the fact that I had been divorced previously, and that my husband has minor nerve damage due to a back injury that only makes him walk a bit oddly. (well, we're both science fiction fans too, but I don't think that was held against us. Anything else that the agencies could use as a reason to reject us was used, I think.)
When my husband and I finally adopted our son, the only agency that would touch us required letters from a pastor or preacher saying that we were of good moral character, plus we had to have a record of attending church for at least a year before the adoption and for a year thereafter before the adoption would be finalized. And Unitarian didn't count: it had to be a good Christian denomination, preferably Protestant.
I don't think there's any viable argument to made that foster care is preferable to adoption in the broad majority of cases where this law would be applicable.
I also rather like Sec. 23E part 8: Refusal by a child placing agency under section 23b or 23d of this chapter to perform, assist, counsel, recommend, facilitate, refer, or participate in a placement that violates the child placing agency's written religious or moral convictions or policies does not constitute a determination that the proposed adoption is not in the best interests of the adoptee.
So an older adoptee, or parents who are surrendering their child, have some ability to lobby for the placement they prefer even if the agency they are working with doesn't like it -- though that may require them to changes agencies, which might be tricky.
I think the compelling case is not only easy to make, it's quite obvious. Leaving kids in foster homes or state-run shelters is clearly a far worse option than placing them in a loving, stable home. Study after study shows that gay parents are no worse than straight parents, which is why every relevant child welfare group endorses gay adoptions. Given the results of innumerable studies on the subject, government has the same compelling interest in placing foster kids with gay adoptive parents as they do with straight adoptive parents.
And I agree with PennyBright. That section of the bill clearly is intended to say that they have no intention of banning gay adoptions, only that they want religious adoption agencies not to be forced to facilitate them. I would like to see added to the law a requirement that if they turn down a gay couple, they must give them information on what the state law says so they know they can go to another adoption agency.
Well, I guess we disagree about the threshhold for a societal interest to become compelling. But that doesn't alter our agreement about the thrust of this bill.
I can't see how any of these could possibly be revelant to loving and caring for a child who needs cared for in this society.
Likewise I can't see how doing that makes it more clear you can love, care, and provide for a child better than those who don't attend.
I think that adoption agencies should only be run by state/government institutions, and not by any religious institution or any institution with significant religious ties in the first place. Why? I submit that what they are doing is labeling children "Christian Children" or "Muslim Children," as if it does not matter that these children have not the faculties of making these decisions; I submit that this is a form of child abuse. And religious institutions using adoption agencies as recruitment is never acceptable.
However, would preventing religious institutions from running adoption agencies mean that the child-to-caretaker ratio will dramatically and devestatingly increase? Yes, it probably would, since we have an example from that agency in Boston som months ago, when a religious institution is forced to not use its own dogma as a selection process, they'll back out entirely. Dispicable, not deserving of respect or reward for sticking to their 'beliefs.'
Still, I would like to see more states deciding that even if an adoption agency is run by a religious institution, any adoption agency should not be able to discriminate based on religious tenets. Maybe when the adoption system starts to look as apalling as it truly is, states' peoples will start to do something about it.
Aerik wrote:
I don't think that follows at all. There are many other adoption agencies in Massachusetts other than Catholic Services, which stopped facilitating adoptions. That doesn't mean that the number of adoptions will decrease, it just means that other agencies will see their business increase. I doubt that couples looking to adopt are going to say, "If that one closed down, I'm not gonna seek out another one."
Faith-Based Initiatives = having their cake and forcing the rest of us to eat it, too. Or, isn't that how these religious adoption agencies get fed funds?
Does the first law make any reference to racial "moral or religious convictions"?
I wonder what would happen if someone set up an atheist based adoption agency that refused to place childern in christian housholds?
Interesting question, mess. This bill says that no child placing agency shall have to facilitate an adoption that violates its "religious or moral convictions or policies" as long as they are in writing. An atheist could just as reasonably argue a moral objection to placing a child with religious parents, for various reasons. I would predict that the courts would uphold that under the letter of this law, but I bet the legislature would try and amend the law to forbid it.
People seem to be missing Becca's point.
"The big kicker is the bit about whether there will be any other agencies who *will* allow such adoptions."
(I wish you'd told us what state you were in when this happened.)
Just as Roe v. Wade conveys no useful right to abortion for women in states or parts of states where the religious right has driven the abortion providers out, a state doesn't have to ban gay adoption if the state agencies and the only non-state agencies that provide adoptions won't give children to gay couples.
(Interestingly, there is a parallel in the question of marijuana. There was a Supreme Court decision that I have the right to smoke marijuana in my own home. But I don't have the right to grow it, and people don't have the right to sell it to me without risking prosecution. Some right!)
Ed,
So then what would the law end up looking like?
The problem that I see is if you say that you can not factor religion into the placment process, then christian orginizations would have to facilitate adoptions for muslim, or worse yet, wicen falimies. I have a feeling that they would hate having to do that and would fight it tooth and nail. On the other hand, it would be an interesting fight to watch. I can see the quotes now
"You can not prevent christians from adopting on religious graounds, and you can not force christians to place children in homes that violate their beleifs, even if that means discriminating on religious grounds."