Texas bill allows child agencies to deny services based on religion.
The Texas Senate has passed a bill that protects state-funded foster care and adoption agencies that want to make decisions about child care and child placement based on “sincerely held religious beliefs.”
House Bill 3859, which passed the state Senate on Monday, would protect religious-based child-welfare providers that choose to turn away same-sex couples or families with certain religious views. The bill also would protect foster parents or group homes that decline for religious reasons to provide certain services to the children in their care — such as emergency contraceptives or abortions or, some worry, vaccinations.
The issue has become a flash point between proponents — who argue that such religious protections give agencies the ability to help an overburdened state welfare system while sticking to their bedrock principles — and those who worry that the bill’s broad language could create an environment of discrimination that will harm children.
“We think the primary purpose of this is to permit lesbian, gay and transgender parents to be turned away, but there’s nothing in the bill that prevents agencies from turning away, for example, people who have been divorced, people who are single, or people who don’t go to church enough,” said Rebecca Robertson, legal and policy director for the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. “At every point where a decision about a kid’s care is being made, you could have the rights of the child-welfare provider take precedent over the best interest of the child.”
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