Faith-Based Adoption Agencies Under Attack!
Last week the House passed HB 1932 (D-Levine) on a party line vote and now it will be heard by the Senate Rehabilitation and Social Services committee, likely this Friday. As we’ve said in previous alerts, this is a dangerous bill that would repeal statutory conscience protections for faith-based adoption and foster care agencies, a law that The Family Foundation helped create in 2012. You can read more about why we oppose HB 1932 on our blog HERE and HERE.
We can stop this dangerous bill, but we need you to contact your Senator before it’s too late!
The sponsor of this troubling bill, Delegate Mark Levine (D-Alexandria), has made some comments that are either blatantly false or omit key information that requires correction.
This bill repeals the entire statutory conscience protection that includes licensing. Therefore, any agency that remains committed to their deeply held religious tenets regarding natural marriage could be subject to complaints and loss of license to even participate in the state’s child placement services.
Repealing the religious conscience clause will not expand the number families who foster/adopt, but rather result in a reduction of the number of qualified families. In 2011, Illinois passed a law ending its partnerships with faith-based agencies, and between 2012 and 2019 Illinois lost 5,352 foster homes, the most significant decrease in any state that reported this data.
Faith-based agencies are able to inspire new foster and adoptive parents, thus increasing the pool of available parents.
There already exist plenty of options for same-sex couples who wish to foster/adopt. There are more than 150 agencies licensed in Virginia, the majority of which have no religious mission and may be open to working with same-sex couples.
Private foster care agencies DO NOT place children in homes – it’s the local social services social worker who makes those determinations. Private agencies recruit, train, and support families so that the DSS social worker can focus on identifying families that best meet that child’s specific needs.
As you can see, this bill will be disastrous for private faith-based agencies that want to help facilitate homes for hundreds of children in foster care or who are waiting to be adopted.
