A win for adoption agencies

Richard A. Sokerka

A federal rule change once again allows faith-based adoption agencies to receive federal funding without being required to place children with same-sex couples. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a religious freedom legal group, welcomed the move.

However, this action by the Trump administration drew protest from every, single Democrat in the U.S. Senate with each Democratic senator signing an objecting letter to U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar on his ruling.

The previous rule, enacted at the end of the Obama administration in 2016, “threatened to shut out faith-based social service providers” if the adoption and foster care agencies “respected a child’s right to a mother and a father,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said.

“Every child deserves a chance to be raised in a loving home. That’s why ADF supports HHS’s revision of its regulations to allow both secular and faith-based providers to compete for federal grants on an equal footing,” said senior counsel Zack Pruitt. Pruitt said faith-based adoption and foster care providers play “an integral role” in serving vulnerable children, like the 430,000 in foster care system and the 125,000 eligible for adoption. “Unfortunately, the previous regulation—finalized in the 11th hour of the Obama Administration—failed to protect all providers and discriminated against faith-based providers simply because of their beliefs about marriage. That is not keeping kids first,” Pruitt said.

“HHS’s proposed rule to end this discrimination offers hope for children, more options for birth parents, support for families, and increased flexibility for states seeking to alleviate real human need,” he said. “We commend HHS for protecting a diversity of providers to ensure the greatest number of children find a permanent, loving family,” he said.

Once again, the Trump administration has stood up for our religious freedoms. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops agreed, stating, “To restrict faith-based organizations’ work by infringing on religious freedom — as the 2016 rule threatened to do - is unfair and served no one, especially the children in need of these services.”