The U.S. House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee Wednesday afternoon passed an amendment that would allow adoption agencies that receive taxpayer funds to refuse to allow LGBT people to adopt, by citing their religious objections to same-sex marriage or LGBT people. The legislation is so broad it allows adoption agencies to discriminate against anyone, merely by claiming a religious or morally-based objection.
The Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act is a 2017 bill that was inserted as an amendment into a 2019 funding bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, as HRC noted.
The legislation is designed not to protect children in need of homes and families – a large percentage of whom are LGBTQ – but to “protect child welfare service providers’ exercise of religion,” according to the bill’s text.
It would “prohibit governmental entities from discriminating” against a child welfare service provider for exercising its “sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
These bills have been popular in conservative states, but not at the federal level for years.
U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) (photo), an anti-gay far right religious extremist, snuck the legislation into the funding bill. Aderholt, who is tied to anti-gay hate groups including the Family Research Council, received immediate praise for his work from FRC president Tony Perkins:
The Heritage Foundation, which has been working closely with the Trump administration to nominate extremist judges to the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, also quickly praised Rep. Aderholt:
UPDATE:
Rep. Aderholt brags about denying children good parents in LGBT households:
Feel free to tweet him back.