The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday passed an amendmentallowing taxpayer-funded adoption agencies to deny LGBTQ families the ability to adopt a child based on religious objection.
The amendment appears on a funding bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. If it remains in the final bill, the amendment would cut 15% of federal adoption funding to states and localities that penalize adoption agencies that refuse to place children in families that conflict with the agency’s “sincerely held religious beliefs or convictions.”
The amendment also bars the federal government from refusing to work with adoption agencies that discriminate.
The vote in the committee was 29-23, along party lines, with Rep. Scott Taylor (R-VA) the lone Republican to vote against the amendment.
“House Republicans are pandering to their far-right base at the expense of LGBTQ people and children in need of a home,” said Democratic National Committee (DNC) LGBTQ Media Director Lucas Acosta.
“Rather than focusing on empowering families or uniting children with their parents, Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee voted to give child welfare agencies a license to discriminate against qualified potential parents.”
Acosta added, “Across the country, LGBTQ candidates are running for office and taking a stand against the Trump-GOP agenda, which seeks to roll back the progress we have made. In November, voters will stand together in the face of this bigotry and hate and elect Democrats up and down the ticket.”
In addition to LGBTQ people and same-sex couples, the amendment would also impact interfaith couples, single parents, married couples in which one prospective parent has previously been divorced, or other qualified parents to whom an agency could have an objection.
Let. Children. Have. Families.
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