Christians could be forced from the foster care system in the United States if President Joe Biden presses ahead with a new rule to override their consciences, a group of Republican attorneys general has said.
The Democrat President is threatening to remove any faith-based provider of foster care unless they accept government instructions on accommodating sexual orientation and gender identity, according to reports.
Foster carers and agencies will have to use a transgender 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”.
The move prompted Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and 18 Republican colleagues in other states to write to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to request exemptions.
The group says the new rule violates the US Constitution and will discriminate unfairly against Christians who hold traditional orthodox beliefs on marriage, the family and sexual morality by forcing them from the sector.
For a child who says he or she is gay to receive a suitable home, the rules, called the Safe and Appropriate Foster Care Placement Requirements, stipulate that providers must establish an environment that is “free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the child’s LGBTQI+ status”.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said: “This is going to change the complexion of how we view foster care treatment for our foster kids, but more importantly, how we look at the people who we rely on to care for foster kids.”
According to GB News, the attorney generals argued that the rule will harm children who might otherwise have prospered with Christian families.
“Without faith-based organisations and foster homes, the foster care system would face a critical lack of placement options,” the AGs wrote.
“The proposed rule will harm children by limiting the number of available foster homes, harm families by risking kinship placements, and harm states by increasing costs and decreasing care options,” they said in their letter.
“These injuries will be suffered while HHS fails to solve a problem that the proposed rule does not even prove exists in foster care.”
The attorneys general drew attention to the large number of Christian individuals and organisations who offer foster care services because they are motivated by their faith.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops alone offers foster care services for undocumented children; foreign-born child victims of trafficking for sex, labour, or domestic servitude; child refugees and asylum seekers, and those abandoned because of family breakdown or orphaned by the death of their parents.
Data suggests there were almost 391,000 children placed in foster care in the United States in 2022 and that within the next three years the figure will increase to about 416,500.
More than a decade ago about a dozen Catholic adoption agencies in Britain were forced to close or sever their ties with the Church when the Labour Government of Tony Blair refused to grant an exemption from the requirement to assess same-sex couples as potential adopters and foster parents.
The reforms in the United States are part of a range of actions unveiled by President Biden this year.
They include the removal of sexually explicit pro-LGBT books for children from libraries as a civil rights violation.