Gay and transgender groups are on a collision course with religious adoption groups in Georgia as legislators advance a bill designed to protect religious freedom for adoption agencies.
The bill, which was read on Tuesday and is expected to work its way through the Senate in the coming weeks, ensures that adoption agencies would not be forced to place children anywhere that “violates certain religious or moral convictions.” It has raised an outcry from gay and transgender advocates.
Democratic state Rep. Matthew Wilson, a gay member of the legislature, criticized the bill upon its introduction in February as “hateful discrimination, pure and simple.”
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Marty Harbin, countered by saying that his bill was only intended to protect the freedom of choice for mothers about how their children will be raised.
“I think family and faith run together,” Harbin said.
Advocacy groups have clashed over the bill as well. The gay and transgender rights group Georgia Equality criticizes the protections as “unconscionable,” according to a spokesman. On the other hand, religious groups have praised the effort for seeking to ensure “the welfare of children.”
“This bill won’t change anything,” Georgia Baptist Mission Board spokesman Mike Griffin told the Washington Examiner. “All this does is protect any particular organization’s First Amendment rights from future government intervention.”
The bill’s introduction came after Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in January unveiled a proposal to overhaul the state’s adoption system. The governor also pushed for the passage of bills that would lower the minimum foster parent age from 25 to 21 and increasing Georgia’s adoption tax credit from $2,000 to $6,000. After announcing his proposal, Kemp indicated that he would address the possibility of protections for religious adoption agencies “when the time comes.”
Former Republican Gov. Nathan Deal killed a similar adoption bill in 2017 after gay rights groups spoke out and corporations such as Disney, Apple, and Time Warner threatened to withdraw business from Georgia. Deal passed a version an amended version in 2018 which did not include religious protections.
The revival of debate over religious protection for adoption agencies puts Georgia in the center of the battleground in state adoption laws. It joins Missouri, whose legislature introduced a bill in January which proposes protections for agencies to exercise their “sincerely held religious beliefs.” Last year, legislators in Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, and Massachusetts all tried, and failed, to pass similar adoption bills.
If the bills in Georgia and Missouri become law, they will join 11 other states offering protections for religious organizations. Nine of these states provided protections after the legalization of gay marriage in the landmark 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision made it relatively easy for gay couples to adopt children.
Tennessee, the most recent of these, passed its adoption protection law in January. Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed the legislation amid corporate backlash and gay and transgender criticism. Republican state Sen. Paul Rose, the bill’s initial sponsor, said that the legislation was only intended to protect “freedom.” Lee said in a statement that he signed the bill because he believes in “protecting the religious liberty of Tennesseans.”
In other states, the issue is far from settled. In Virginia, which has had protections since 2012, a bill proposed in January seeks to repeal those provisions and instead provide nondiscrimination measures for the categories of sexual orientation and gender identity.
In Michigan, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed a lawsuit on behalf of the St. Vincent Catholic Charities when the state attempted to sever ties with the organization over the adoption issue. The case is ongoing.
The issue is becoming a national issue as well. President Trump proposed federal protections for adoption agencies in November last year. The move would undo an Obama-era policy which requires providers not to discriminate against gay and transgender people seeking children to receive taxpayer funding.
As with the state bill, gay and transgender groups spoke out against the proposal. Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David called it a “horrific federal regulation” in a statement. The proposal received support from many faith-based groups, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Family Research Center.
