Same-Sex Adoption: “Equality” or Religious Discrimination?
by Kristin Darr
Some adoption agencies are under attack.
Anti-discrimination laws, supposedly meant to enhance the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender persons, ultimately threaten religious freedoms. Government provisions for homosexual protections, such as “hate crimes” laws, employment non-discrimination acts, the legalization of gay marriage, and policies to promote sexual orientation inclusion, innately lead to discrimination against people of faith, who oppose homosexual behavior. When religious liberty and sexual liberty clash, religious liberty often suffers. Recent occurrences in the adoption arena illustrate this disturbing fact. Adoption agencies holding moral convictions against same-sex adoption have become the latest casualties in the “politically correct” movement for sexual orientation “equality.”
Certain anti-discrimination laws in the U.K. and U.S. ultimately mandate that adoption agencies must allow same-sex couples to adopt children. These acts stifle the freedom of independent adoption agencies to decide that they will not, in the best interest of children, place children for adoption with gay- or lesbian-identified couples. So, sexual orientation equality laws meant to prevent discrimination actually violate the freedom of adoption agencies who hold religious or moral convictions against certain adoption placements. As a sad result, adoption agencies, which help to place numerous children for adoption, are forced to decide between closing their doors and violating their deeply held beliefs by facilitating homosexual adoption.
The UK Experiment
Britain’s Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations of 2007 require that all adoption agencies must allow same-sex couples to adopt children with equal consideration, regardless of the sexual orientation of the adopting couple. As a result of the law, several Catholic adoption agencies announced that they would cease operations, and the Catholic Church in England disaffiliated itself from three of Britain’s largest adoption agencies. On June 6, 2008, the Catholic Children’s Rescue Service became the first Catholic adoption agency in Britain to stop finding new homes for children. Even more ominously, religious couples in the UK are being told they cannot serve as foster parents if they refuse to tell their foster children that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. Clearly, Britain’s effort to end so-called “discrimination” against same-sex couples has led to a suppression of religious freedom.
Same-Sex Adoption and Religious Freedom in the US
The current UK experience of blatant religious liberty violations serves as a frightening warning of where the United States is headed. Activist courts are clearly eager to elevate sexual orientation equality, interpreting laws and deciding cases that enshrine homosexual “rights” with little regard for the religious liberties that are destroyed. Already, adoption agencies in several states have been forced to cease service or to adjust their policies in order to uphold their religious beliefs in the face of government statutes and court decisions. Most notoriously, in 2006, Massachusetts’ anti-discrimination laws pushed Catholic Charities of Boston to leave the adoption business in order to uphold its religious convictions against same-sex adoption. Faced with the decision to either challenge Massachusetts’ statute by refusing to place children with homosexual couples or to violate Catholic teaching by allowing same-sex couples to adopt, Catholic Charities bowed out of the adoption arena.
An Arizona-based internet adoption registry has also decided to stop providing adoption services to Californians. The online registry was sued by a same-sex couple from California after the company refused – based upon religious beliefs – to accept the couple’s adoptive parent profile. The couple claimed that the company’s policy of serving only a “qualifying husband and wife couple” violated California’s anti-discrimination law. After a San Francisco court accepted the suit, the online registry agreed in an out-of-court settlement to stop serving California rather than to accept the profiles of homosexual couples in compliance with California law. Now, a same-sex couple from New York has also filed a discrimination complaint against the company. The internet adoption registry might be forced to stop serving another state because of its religious conviction against homosexual adoption.
Protecting Religious Freedom in the Adoption Arena
In light of the inevitable threat posed by anti-discrimination laws, the state of North Dakota has proactively passed a bill, which provides conscience protection for adoption providers. Informally titled the “Adoption Agency Freedom to Serve” Act, the law mandates that adoption agencies may refuse to engage in any adoption that violates their moral or religious beliefs. Such protection allows agencies to show adoption placement preference for married couples and to prohibit placement with homosexual couples. As the movement for sexual liberty increasingly threatens religious rights, other states should follow suit in passing Freedom of Conscience laws to protect adoption agencies from discrimination. No adoption agency should be forced to decide between ceasing its work to help children who need families and violating its deeply held conviction that homosexual adoption is not in the best interest of these children.
Kristin Darr is the Associate Analyst for Adoption Policy at Focus on the Family.
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