New South Dakota Law Legalizes LGBTQ Discrimination
Update to thread from Friday: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218245369
http://www.attn.com/stories/15615/south-dakota-law-legalizes-lgbt-discrimination-adoption
Senate Bill 149, signed into law Friday, states that child placement agencies, which include adoption agencies and foster care, are free to refuse service under any circumstance that may conflict with “sincerely-held religious belief or moral conviction.” Leading advocacy groups including the Human Rights Campaign and ACLU have raised concerns that the bill will open child service agencies, which support over 1,200 foster children in the state, to deny adoption and foster services to minority groups including LGBTQ couples, single parents, and mixed-faith couples.
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Trump has championed the FADA, and openly supported legislation proposed on religious liberty grounds. “Religious liberty is enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution. It is our first liberty and provides the most important protection in that it protects our right of conscience,” Trump said in a September press release titled, Issues of Importance to Catholics. “If I am elected president and Congress passes the First Amendment Defense Act, I will sign it to protect the deeply held religious beliefs of Catholics and the beliefs of Americans of all faiths.”
Similar legislation is working its way through states including Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas, the last of which has the second highest number of foster children in the country.