The latest round in the fight over religious freedom in Texas will be fought in the foster care system.
State Rep Scott Sanford (R-McKinney) would allow faith-based adoption agencies to only place children with qualified families that are headed by one man and one woman.
“It would allow them to continue their good work in Texas, without compromising their sincerely held religious beliefs,” he said in an Austin press conference this month.
He says, in other states, faith based groups have stopped facilitating adoptions because they lacked protection. In 2003, the state of Massachusetts refused to allow Catholic Charities of Boston to deny access to same sex couples. In 2010, DC refused to protect Catholic Charities, despite repeated requests from the archdiocese.
Much of the debate over those cases, though, swirled around the legality of same sex marriage, which has since been resolved by the United State Supreme Court.
Sanford’s bill comes at a time when the state legislature has made fixing the state’s foster care system a priority. Chuck Smith, who heads Equality Texas, says, for that reason, it’s insane to limit the number of potential foster families.
“It may end up being that the best interest of a child is being with a same sex couple,” he tells Newsradio 1200 WOAI.
He says the bill puts religion ahead of what’s best for foster kids.
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