AUSTIN, Texas — Parents seeking to adopt children in Texas could soon be rejected by state-funded or private agencies with religious objections to them being Jewish, Muslim, gay, single or interfaith couples, under a proposal in the GOP-controlled Legislature.
Five other states have passed similar laws protecting faith-based adoption organizations that refuse to place children with gay parents or other households on religious grounds — but Texas’ rule would extend to state-funded agencies. Only South Dakota’s is similar.
The bill had been scheduled for debate and approval Saturday in the state House, but lawmakers bogged down with other matters. It now is expected to come up this week.
Republican sponsors of Texas’ bill say it is designed to support the religious freedom of adoption agencies and foster care providers. Many of the agencies are private and faith-based but receive state funds.
But opponents say it robs children of stable homes while funding discrimination with taxpayer dollars.
“This would allow adoption agencies to turn away qualified, loving parents who are perhaps perfect in every way because the agency has a difference in religious belief,” said Catherine Oakley, senior legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign. “This goes against the best interest of the child.”
The bill also blatantly violates the Constitution, Oakley added.
“As a governmental entity, Texas is bound to treat people equally under the law,” Oakley said. “This is a violation of equal protection under the law.”
State Rep. James Frank, the bill’s author, said it’s designed to address the state’s foster care crisis by making “reasonable accommodations so everyone can participate in the system.”
“Everyone is welcome. But you don’t have to think alike to participate,” said Frank, a Republican from rural Wichita Falls, near Texas’ border with Oklahoma.
Suzanne Bryant, an Austin-based adoption attorney who works with LGBT clients and was one of the first individuals to have a legal same-sex marriage in Texas, said the bill fails to provide alternatives for prospective parents rebuffed by adoption agencies.
“Say you call an agency and say, ‘I’m Jewish,’ and it’s a Catholic agency and they hang up on you,” Bryant said. “The bill says you can be referred to another agency, but there’s no mechanism to set that up.”
Not only could agencies turn away hopeful parents under the religious freedom provision, but they could require children in the foster care system to comply with their faith-based requirements, Bryant said.
That means child welfare organizations could send LGBT kids to conversion therapy. They could also deny young people contraception and abortions.
“If a 17-year-old who is sexually active wants birth control, the burden to prove that constitutional right is on the child,” Bryant said. “They don’t have their parents advocating for them and supposed to go it alone against the system.”
More than 100 children died in Texas child protective services last year alone, when a judge had already ruled that the system violated youngsters’ constitutional rights by leaving them more troubled when they left the system than when they entered it.
