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| The Family Research Council is thinking of new ways to steal LGBTQ tax dollars. |
According to the Family Research Council, there is a war on faith-based adoption agencies:
National Adoption Month Kicks off with Attack on Faith
November 20, 2018
By FRC's Mary Beth Waddell, Senior Legislative Assistant
While millions of American were voting, Philadelphia foster parents were in court fighting the government's attempt to shut down Catholic Charities adoption and foster care services because it is faith-based. Nearly half of all Catholic Charities adoptions nationally are for special needs children, so their permanent closure would be especially devastating. It was a somber launch to National Adoption Month for children seeking families.
In March of 2018, the City of Philadelphia (the city) put out an urgent call for foster parents. Despite this urgent need and within days of this call, the City terminated its foster placement contracts with Catholic Charities and Bethany Christian Services -- two of its nearly thirty partner agencies, because they were faith-based. This has resulted in empty foster homes and children left languishing because fewer agencies are working on their behalf. One such empty foster home was Cecelia Paul's. She had fostered over 130 children, adopted six, and been named "Foster Parent of the Year." Other foster parents, like Sharonell Fulton, who is caring for two special needs children, may not be able to continue fostering because they no longer have access to the training, resources, and support of Catholic Charities -- which she and others have observed as superior to that of government agencies.
Worse yet, sibling groups are in danger of not being placed together. When another agency transferred a child into Catholic Charities' custody so that it could be placed with its sibling already in Catholic Charities' care, the city didn't respond favorably. Although the city didn't separate the siblings, it sent a notice to its partner agencies demanding written acknowledgment of the referral contract termination; thus, indicating that siblings would not automatically be placed together.
Taking a page from fellow anti-LGBTQ hate group the Alliance Defending Freedom, FRC looks to to cover up the truth of the matter. Just as ADF exploited baker Jack Phillips in the Masterpiece case to distort the issue of "religious liberty" to a situation about a cake instead of what it actually was about (using religion as an excuse to discriminate), FRC is exploiting Ms. Paul and Ms. Fulton, the caregivers in piece above, to hide what this issue is about.
In actuality, the city of Philadelphia did not terminate the contracts with the agencies because they were faith-based. The contracts were terminated BECAUSE the agencies would not work with same-sex couples, which was a violation of the contract with the city.
