by WorldTribune Staff, November 28, 2023
Republican state attorney generals are blasting a proposed rule by the Biden administration that would require foster parents and foster familiesto use the stated preferred pronouns of children and allow children to self-identify their gender.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule, Safe and Appropriate Foster Care Placement Requirements, would mandate that foster parents and families utilize a foster child’s “identified pronouns, chosen name, and allow the child to dress in an age-appropriate manner that the child believes reflects their self-identified gender identity and expression.”
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and 18 of his GOP colleagues sent a letter to HHS on Monday stating the rule would lead to a foster care system that would be crippled without Christian families opening their homes.
“The foster care system depends on individuals and organizations of faith,” the letter argues.
The letter cites Arkansas and New Mexico as examples. In Arkansas, one faith-based group is credited with recruiting almost half of the foster homes in the state. In New Mexico, every private placement agency is Christian.
The letter from the state AGs also states that the rule “seeks to accomplish indirectly what the Supreme Court found unconstitutional just two years ago: remove faith-based providers from the foster care system if they will not conform their religious beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity.”
The Supreme Court in 2021, in a case called Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, ruled that Philadelphia’s refusal to contract with a Catholic social services group unless it agreed to certify same-sex couples as foster parents violated the First Amendment.
Marshall said in a statement to Fox News Digital: “Joe Biden continues to harass our State and others like it by implicitly threatening to withhold federal funding for children in need if we do not conform to his ideology, but our values are not for sale. Since the first century, Christians across the globe have answered the call to provide a home and a family to children who had neither. Alabama boasts a particularly strong faith-based foster care and adoption community, and I will fight this Administration for them every step of the way.”
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