Federal Funding Discrimination

I firmly believe that federal funding should not be used to promote discrimination, that they can’t use religion to hide their bigotry.

A Christian ministry won’t change its Christians-only criteria for foster-care parents. Is that okay with Trump?
The Washington Post
By Laura Meckler
January 6, 2019

The Miracle Hill Ministries in Greenville, S.C., makes clear from the start that only Christian parents need apply for its foster-care program. On its forms, candidates are asked to offer personal testimony of their faith or salvation.

“Our existence and identity is tied to our faith in God and belief in Jesus Christ,” said Reid Lehman, Miracle Hill’s president and chief executive. He said the ministry would drop out of the foster-care program rather than work with parents who aren’t Christian.

That policy, in place for 30 years, runs counter to an Obama-era regulation barring religious discrimination in the federally funded foster-care program. Now, with Miracle Hill’s funding threatened, the Trump administration is being asked by the governor of South Carolina to let Miracle Hill participate anyway.

It’s the latest clash in a long-running debate over religious freedom and government social services, as three successive administrations have considered how much religion is too much religion when agencies are collecting taxpayer funds. The Trump administration’s response in the South Carolina case will signal whether it will adhere to modest limits imposed by the Bush and Obama administrations or whether it will allow religious entities a freer hand.

And it is not just in North Carolina it is also happening in other states.

In Philadelphia, the city cut off Catholic Social Services from its foster-care program after learning that the agency would not license same-sex couples. Catholic Social Services is challenging the decision in court.

In Michigan, the American Civil Liberties Union is suing the state over its policy of contracting with child-placement agencies that use religious criteria to turn away gay and lesbian couples who wish to be foster or adoptive parents.

“States have an obligation to care for children in the public child-welfare system,” said Leslie Cooper, an ACLU attorney. “When they hire agencies to care for them . . . they should not be using religious criteria to deny children access to families that they desperately need.”

Lambda Legal said in their blog,

HHS granted South Carolina’s Governor Henry McMaster request that taxpayer-funded agencies contracted with the State to provide child welfare services be exempted from federal rules prohibiting discrimination and be allowed to work only with families who meet their religious litmus test.

In addition to violating the principle of separation of church and state, the waiver violates a host of statutory and constitutional protections which apply to children in foster care and allows South Carolina agencies to turn away parents trying to provide children with good homes.

Public money should be used for the benefit of everyone. You shouldn’t have to be a member of a certain religion, you shouldn’t have to be a certain nationality, you shouldn’t have to be of a certain sexual orientation or gender identity.

It’s for the benefit everyone!