Disgraced former Gov.
Andrew Cuomo
once famously announced that opponents of
abortion
were not welcome in his state. As he put it, “They’re the extreme conservatives. They have no place in the state of
New York
because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that Cuomo bent the apparatus of New York’s state government to harass people with traditional values.
THROW THE BOOK AT THE ‘COP CITY’ INSURRECTIONISTS
This
came up in mid-March
when New York was forced to settle a case against New Hope Family Services, a Christian adoption agency. New Hope stuck to its founding religious principle that ”
every child deserves a home with a loving mother and father who are committed to each other
” through marriage. The state government’s left-wing functionaries hated this and acted hatefully against New Hope.
Like other left-wing jurisdictions, including Philadelphia, New York operated on the assumption that it is better to prevent children from being adopted at all than to allow them to be placed through a private Christian service that won’t place children with families other than those with traditional husbands and wives. Another way of seeing this accurately and clearly is to recognize that an organization that insists on doing what is best for children — placing them in intact conventional families with a mother and a father married to one another — will be persecuted by a government that wants to shut it down even when it takes no government money.
Philadelphia litigated a similar case and lost unanimously at the Supreme Court level on First Amendment grounds. Importantly, that case was different in that the Catholic adoption agency in question was actually working in conjunction with the city to place children. In other words, Philadelphia’s case had been stronger than New York’s and still lost unanimously in the high court.
That didn’t deter New York, but it has now finally given up and agreed to pay New Hope’s legal fees.
This shouldn’t be complicated. This is not like refusing to serve someone at a restaurant. There is no right to adopt children. It is widely and wisely agreed that not all legal adult lifestyles are conducive to good child-raising, which is why all adoption services, including those that also serve same-sex partners or cohabiting couples, screen prospective parents. The fact that some agencies have a religious basis for their operations and view a stable sacramental marriage as the standard for adoptive parents should therefore not be controversial. It is merely one more part of the diversity within America’s culture of philanthropy and civil society.
There is no reason why all adoption providers should be forced to place children without regard to their religious mission or its associated tenets. While it is good to see federal courts protect faith-based organizations from state discrimination, Congress could do more to protect First Amendment rights. In previous years, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced the First Amendment Defense Act, which would shield institutions from being discriminated against because of their definition of marriage. Congress should take action to pass similar legislation soon.
