Civic Register
| 5.9.18
States Pass Anti-LGBTQ Adoption Laws Hours After Trump Signs Religious Liberty Order
Join us and tell your reps how you feel!
What’s the story?
- President Donald Trump recently signed his second executive order to “protect religious liberty,” which includes establishing a new office at the White House called the Faith and Opportunity Initiative.
“The faith initiative will help design new policies that recognize the vital role of faith in our families, our communities and our great country,” Trump said at the National Day of Prayer ceremony. “This office will also help ensure that faith-based organizations have equal access to government funding and the equal right to exercise their deeply held beliefs.”
- Less than 24 hours later, lawmakers in Kansas and Oklahoma passed bills that would allow faith-based adoption agencies, including those that receive public funds, to cite their religious beliefs for not placing children in LGBTQ homes.
What are both sides saying?
- The Human Rights Campaign argued the laws give a “license to discriminate,” and tweeted:
- Kansas’s Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer, however, argues that the new adoption laws will encourage faith-based groups to provide additional adoption and foster care services for the state.
“Catholic Charities and other adoption agencies are key to the fabric of our communities. I look forward to signing this bill because it increases the opportunities for needy children to find loving homes,” Colyer said.
What do you think?
- Do you agree with Zeke Stokes, the vice president of programs at GLAAD, who said: “This is a slap in the face to children and families across the state, and lawmakers who voted for this bill should be ashamed of themselves.”
- Or do you side with Family Policy Alliance of Kansas Executive Director and President Eric Teetsel that “Conscience is absolutely vita. It's the foundation of all civil liberties and no one should ever say to another person, you don't get to do business, you don't get to live your life, you don't get to raise your family according to the dictates of your conscience."
- Should more states adopt similar laws? Hit Take Action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.
—Josh Herman
(Photo Credit: svetikd / iStock)
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