Illinois tells religious groups: permit gay foster parents or lose funding

[Bluebear]

Earlier this week, we saw that Great Britain was cracking down on foster parents who are anti-gay. In a move that's sure to send the Catholic Church into spasms of victimization, the state of Illinois is going to crack down on foster care organization institutions that reject gay parents:

State officials are investigating whether religious agencies that receive public funds to license foster care parents are breaking anti-discrimination laws if they turn away openly gay parents.

If they are found in violation, Lutheran Child and Family Services, Catholic Charities in five regions and the Evangelical Child and Family Agency will have to license openly gay foster parents or lose millions of state dollars, potentially disrupting more than 3,000 foster children in their care.

Though Illinois legislators championing the civil union bill earlier this year insisted that religious institutions would not be forced to bless same-sex unions, it said nothing about same-sex parents.

Now, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Gov. Pat Quinn's legal team and the Department of Children and Family Services are carefully researching the Illinois Human Rights Act, the Civil Union Act and the Illinois Constitution to determine whether they prohibit agencies from considering sexual orientation as a factor in foster care and adoption. In Illinois, all adults who adopt or become foster care providers must obtain foster care licenses.

http://gay.americablog.com/2011/03/illinois-tells-religious-groups-they.html

[Jmaxfie1]

1. Nice one IL! n/t

[HockeyMom]

2. My cousin was raised by his Mom and Partner in the 50's

He had a much better, STABLE, family life than I did with my two straight, married, parents. STABILITY is the key the word, not gay or straight.

[xchrom]

3. excellent. nt

[madrchsod]

4. sometimes my state is an island of reason..

what burns my ass is there are cases where straight couples should never be foster care parents. another problem is there a huge shortage of qualified people to take children from idcfs emergency situations. my wife and i were begged to shelter someone way past the emergency guideline because there was no one else. fortunately the situation was resolved.

jesus did`t give a shit who took care of the children as long as they were treated as he would be. to bad these so called christian agencies refuse to acknowledge that fact

[customerserviceguy]

5. While I support the aims of the IL AG, Governor, and DCFS

I have to say that I'm worried about the foster kids and foster parents who work with these about-to-be defunded organizations, yet are not so narrow-minded as the organizations that serve them. If a reasonable transition can be made from religious organizations who still have their heads up their asses to non-profit secular groups that don't have a problem with same-gender foster parents, then I'm all for it.

That's something that Madigan, Quinn, and DCFS need to consider in the process towards equality. It won't help the cause if this creates horror stories for Faux Noise to report.

[foxfeet]

6. Bravo!

Aside from being simply the right thing to do, it is a resource issue for cash-strapped states.