Faith shouldn't discriminate: adoption restrictions hurt children all the more | Opinion

There are already too few adults with the abilities, resources and willingness to open their homes to foster children.

Marianne Duddy-Burke
Guest Columnist
  • Marianne Duddy-Burke is the executive director of Dignity USA.

Tennessee legislators have introduced a slate of bills granting licenses to discriminate. Among them are two bills that would allow faith-based child placement agencies to refuse to provide services to certain people due to religious or moral beliefs.

While often used to ban LGBT individuals and couples from providing loving homes, these laws can also bar single people, non-Christians, previously divorced people or interracial couples from caring for these children.

Tennessee is just one of several states which have introduced similar bills this session. The federal Department of Health and Human Services just issued a waiver to South Carolina allowing faith-based child welfare agencies in the state to discriminate based on religion.

Children deserve a loving, stable home

Hudson Garner, 15, with his mothers Kathryn Garner and Susan Hrostowski, left, in 2015. Garner and Hrostowski are one of the four lesbian couples who sued the state in federal court over its same-sex adoption ban.

The proliferation of these types of laws and policies across the country is a direct attack on the well-being of children and undermines the ability of child welfare systems to serve those who need our protection the most.  I know this because I am a married lesbian who has worked with the foster care system in Massachusetts, where we live, to adopt two wonderful children, and currently foster an infant.

My wife and I are also Catholic and are raising our children according to Catholic values that we hold dear – values like treating others how you want to be treated and embracing our common humanity. Despite holding true to these values, we were rejected for consideration as parents by our local Catholic Charities agency. Without knowing anything about us beyond our same-sex relationship, this organization ruled us out as potential parents for the children in their care.

Fortunately, we live in Massachusetts, a state that supports LGBT foster and adoptive parents. Both children eventually placed with us had significant physical and emotional needs because of their early traumas. However, with love, stability, good medical and mental health care—and the support of our strong, diverse community of family and friends—they have both blossomed into happy, healthy, loving, talented, caring teenagers.

Do not turn qualified parents away just because they are gay

There are already too few adults with the abilities, resources and willingness to open their homes to foster children. By imposing arbitrary restrictions that support a particular set of religious beliefs — beliefs that portray LGBT people and other groups as unfit to parent — the possibility that these children will ever find the stability that a long-term foster or adoptive family can provide is cruelly diminished.

Children who age out of the system without finding a forever family often encounter a whole host of disadvantages compared to their peers, including less educational attainment and lower employment rates.

As the executive director of DignityUSA, an organization devoted to seeking respect and justice for LGBT people in the Catholic Church and the world, I can attest that faith should not be used to discriminate. It can instead be a powerful unifier. The importance of family is a value that many faiths uphold as a key tenet, leading majorities of all major religious groups to oppose any policy allowing agencies that receive federal funding to exclude same-sex couples from being considered as parents.

We, as a nation, are not in a position to turn qualified parents away if we truly believe that all children deserve a loving home and welcoming family.

Marianne Duddy-Burke is the executive director of Dignity USA.