Saturday, June 13, 2015

Discrimination won't stop with gay people

Michigan Radio has a good article about Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and the new law that allows faith-based adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples. Snyder signed the law because somewhere between a quarter and a third of Michigan adoptions are through faith-based agencies. He felt that if they closed too many kids would not be connected to willing parents.

Yes, there will be a court challenge. The challengers say their case is strengthened by agencies saying that same-sex couples are already turned away. Glad to hear the discrimination case is stronger, but it left me confused. The Michigan same-sex marriage case before the Supremes (decision in about two weeks!) was originally about adoption. The judge had said the reason why they couldn't adopt was because they couldn't get married. The couple couldn't adopt because of the way state judges interpreted state law. The couple couldn't adopt through any agency, faith-based or not. So here is the confusion. If all agencies refused same-sex couples, how are the statements of the faith-based agencies evidence of unconstitutional discrimination?

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin notes this is discrimination on the taxpayers' dime and the discrimination may not end with same-sex couples. A Catholic adoption agency could refuse to give a child to Pagans, Jews, or Muslims. Or Atheists.

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