Virginia Senate Advances Adoption Bill Allowing Agencies to Deny Gays Based on Religious Beliefs
The Virginia Senate today advanced a bill which passed the House last week that allows private adoption agencies to discriminate based on religious or moral beliefs, the AP reports:
The mostly party-line 22-18 vote virtually ensures the Republican-backed bill will become law. The House of Delegates has an identical version of the bill and Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell says he will sign it. Virginia would become just the second state with such a law, which supporters said was modeled after North Dakota’s.
State Sen. Jeffrey McWaters, a Republican from Virginia Beach, said his “conscience clause” bill protects the religious rights of private child placement agencies, including dozens that contract with the state to provide foster care and adoption services.
Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin thinks they may have stepped in their own bigotry with the bill's language:
No private child-placing agency shall be required to consider or consent to any placement of a child for foster care or adoption when the proposed placement would conflict with the religious tenets of any sponsor of the agency or other organization or institution with which the child-placing agency is affiliated or associated.
Now I’m sure that all those good ol’ Southern Baptist boys thought that this gave them the power to discriminate. It did. And further more, with the people’s money. Praise Jesus*
But it also empowered others to find that certain cultural views are repressive and dangerous to children and that their faith prohibits the exposure of children to that element. For example, Quakers may find that military families are unfit based on their religious beliefs. Atheists affiliated with an established freethinkers organization could point to the tenets of their organization and decide that church goers rely on superstition and bronze age notions that hinder a child’s development. And we know that Mormons will be automatically disqualified from most taxpayer-funded but church-administered adoption or fostering programs.
The funny thing about religious beliefs is that everyone has them.
The White House weighed in earlier this week:
“While the president does not weigh in on every single action taken by legislative bodies in our country, he has long believed that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals based on their interest in offering a loving home, not based on discriminatory and irrelevant factors,” said Shin Inouye, a White House spokesperson. “He recognizes that adoptive families come in many forms, and that we must do all we can to break down barriers to ensure that all qualified caregivers have the ability to serve as adoptive families.”
Posted Feb. 9,2012 at 6:41 PM EST by Andy Towle in Catholic Church, Evangelical Christians, Evangelicals, Gay Adoption, News, Virginia | Permalink
WAIT --- That really sounds odd, but maybe on a deeper level it makes sense. On surface, however, one wonders how the heck an Agency of the State of Virginia can assert its "religious" grounds.
Man, it is amazing how so many republicans are so lost on Gay issues and so many democrats are so lost on economic issues.
Cant we just have a re-set?
Posted by: Eyes For Guys | Feb 9, 2012 6:48:16 PM
Un-Constituional. Start a referendum to over turn it.
Posted by: Sargon Bighorn | Feb 9, 2012 6:58:13 PM
Hate when sanctioned by religion is a valued and esteemed American tradition.
Posted by: StevyD | Feb 9, 2012 7:00:10 PM
Religious based bigotry is the worse form of bigotry.
Posted by: Mel Smith | Feb 9, 2012 7:00:14 PM
I don't think Democrats are lost on economic issues at all---at least not progressive Democrats.
Posted by: Kippy | Feb 9, 2012 7:09:45 PM
I though they banned Sharia in the southern states ... oh wait ...
Posted by: badlydrawnbear | Feb 9, 2012 7:12:51 PM
Virginia doesn't have referendums. Even if it did, I bet this one would lose. Half of more of the state is totally backward.
Posted by: Paul R | Feb 9, 2012 7:32:16 PM
In the Virginia elections this past fall, too many liberals, students, minorities (including LGBT voters) and independents stayed home. And so the Republicans completely control the state government -- Governor, State Senate, State House. So this is what happens when Republicans are in control. THERE ARE GOOD REPUBLICANS -- and that's why same-sex marriage recently passed the Washington State Senate and why it became law last year in New York, and also why the New Hampshire Senate (controlled by Republicans, but with many good Republicans) may prevent repealing same-sex marriage in New Hampshire. But in general, for people who don't bother to vote for progressives, or for those who vote Republican without making sure their Republican candidate supports gay rights, you can expect what is going on in Virginia to happen elsewhere.
Posted by: MiddleoftheRoader | Feb 9, 2012 8:33:45 PM
Virginia is really quite a sad place, not sure why any gay person would choose to live there.
Posted by: Jeff L | Feb 9, 2012 8:57:29 PM
I moved from Virginia to Maryland years ago. This has been a long time coming. Very southern State.
Posted by: Adam | Feb 9, 2012 9:05:22 PM
As their bumper sticker states: Virgina is for Bigots.
Posted by: miKem | Feb 9, 2012 9:11:01 PM
If past in prologue, then I would bet that many of these "good" Republicans are hiding gay tendencies with this outcry against gays. I'm just waiting for one of them to get caught playing footsie in the bathroom stalls of the statehouse.
Don't give up on the Old Dominion. What has happened in Virginia could happen in any state when the Republicans take over both legislative houses and the Governor's Office. All Virginians can hope that the next Governor will be a Democrat and that the House will change hands. We'll have to wait four years to get rid of the women-hating, gay-bashing, right-wing zealots in the Senate. Their actions in this Session should announce to the world that conservative values aren't American values. What's next - being able to decide who gets your donated organs?
Posted by: Melissa Smith | Feb 9, 2012 9:27:23 PM
Simply unbelievable. Clearly unconstitutional - how these bigots can sleep at night is beyond me... I wish someone with the means would open up an adoption agency and ban adoptions to Catholics... that would quickly make the point - and would be entertaining to watch their heads spin off in disbelief!
Posted by: MikeH | Feb 9, 2012 10:15:39 PM
No one has a monopoly on bigotry. The real issue, is it not, is when ppl LET someone else do their thinking for them, i.e. becoming a prophet of repeating what you have been told to think, rather than actually engaging your own brain to measure the short and long term outcomes of given alternative actions. Pols are good at making wonderful intentions sound determinative, but like my mom always said, judge your friends by the actions they take, not just the words they profess. And when you assess an action, you need to consider all of its consequences, not just the sample served by the pols proposing it or the popular press.
Having been raised Catholic, I was permeated with the ancient attitude (dating back to Egyptian civilisation) that we are to leave the thinking to the priestly class. Pray, pay and obey is the role of the laity. Vatican II provessed to alter this, but change in the 2000 year old institution that is the Catholic Church is glacially rapide.
Our challenge, then, is really to invite the ppl often referred to as bigots to consider for themselves how they would treat their own son or daughter who came out to them. The next step is to ask said person why they should treat me or my son or daughter any differently.
So often humanity is so willing to just repeat what they have been told. I guess true presence and listening are often willingly left at home, so to speak.
Posted by: Eyes For Guys | Feb 9, 2012 11:36:18 PM
Time for a Boycott of all things Virginia!! Sorry Virginia, your Christmas is over!!! NOT A PENNY TO ANY TOURIST SPOT IN VA!!
Posted by: aj | Feb 10, 2012 1:08:53 AM
Boycotting (or supporting, in the case of JC Penney) a company based on corporate actions makes sense. But, I've never understood how boycotting an entire state is effective. Is it fair to economically hurt Virginia's LGB residents and allies based on the action of a few legislators? Of course not.
For those advocating boycotting Virginia, where do you draw the line? If you think that Virginia should be off limits, shouldn't LGB people in other parts of the world start boycotting the US?
Posted by: alex | Feb 10, 2012 2:23:44 AM
I have lived in DC and now live in Maryland..you couldn't GIVE me a home in Virginia. They have done everything to discourage gays.They can even overturn will, trusts, powers of Attorney etc...a pox on them!
Posted by: Barry Stampler | Feb 10, 2012 8:12:52 AM
"
Our challenge, then, is really to invite the ppl often referred to as bigots to consider for themselves how they would treat their own son or daughter who came out to them. The next step is to ask said person why they should treat me or my son or daughter any differently."
That's a great idea, but it has been tried before. Previous attempts have shown that more often than not, the bigots would treat their own gay kid the same way they'd treat yours or mine. Or you. Or me. The only thing that would change that would be a paradigm-shattering personal experience, and frankly we simply don't have the money or the time to facilitate that for each and every bigot out there. They're going to have to come to grips with the reality of GLBT equality on their own.
Posted by: The Milkman | Feb 10, 2012 11:06:58 AM
Dang-it! We screwed up at the end of the Civil War. We should have let Virginia stay out of the Union.
Posted by: Jerry6 | Feb 10, 2012 7:25:59 PM