Bill That Would Keep Faith-based Adoption Agencies from Being Forced to Place Children into Same-Sex Families Passes Tennessee House

Calvin Freiburger : Apr 3, 2019
LifeSiteNews.com

"What we're doing is saying if you have a religious faith, we as a body are going to intervene before the courts do and we're going to stand with you and say we will stand with you in tolerance and allow you to be you." -GOP state Rep. Jeremy Faison

(Nashville, TN)—[LifeSiteNews.com] Lawmakers in the Tennessee House passed a bill Monday that would safeguard faith-based adoption agencies' freedom not to place children in homes that would violate their religious convictions, such as same-sex households that lack either a father or a mother. (Image: Pixabay)

Introduced by Republican State Rep. Tim Rudd, HB 836 provides that "no private licensed child-placing agency shall be required to perform, assist, counsel, recommend, consent to, refer, or participate in any placement of a child for foster care or adoption when the proposed placement would violate the agency's written religious or moral convictions or policies," and prohibits such agencies from being penalized for doing so by state or local licensing bodies, by civil actions, or by denial of grants, contracts, or other government programs.

The bill passed 67-22, the Associated Press reports, following a "brief but tense" debate. It is one of several conservative and religious-liberty measures currently before the legislature, and would protect the state's religious adoption agencies from efforts to force them out of business, as LGBT activists have launched in other states.

"We're doing the same as nine other states have done," Rudd argued. "Throughout the country, these faith-based organizations have been sued to the point they're being driven out of business due to costs"... Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

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