Texas Adoption: New Law Restricts Placement For Gays, Non-Christians

AUSTIN, TX — With the stroke of a pen on Thursday, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a measure that allows faith-based adoption and foster care agencies to prevent gay and transgender individuals, as well as non-Christians, from adopting children under their stewardship.

House Bill 3859 gained approval even as the state is struggling to overcome a critical shortage of homes for abused and neglected children, with many kids placed in hotels and offices as makeshift living quarters as they wait to be placed with adoptive parents.

According to lawmakers, religious agencies make up about a quarter of the child placement agencies in Texas. The new law also gives these agencies leeway in denying adoptions to those not practicing the Christian faith.

Abbott has never been shy to exert his religious views as part of his governance and has opposed placing children with people whose lifestyles do not conform to his religious views.

The ban on adoptions to members of the gay, lesbian or transgender community was passed largely along party lines, with Abbot's fellow Republicans exercising their own overtures in appealing to their conservative constituency base.

Opponents of the measure decried the move as not only counter-intuitive to finding loving homes for children in the state's stewardship but as legislation tantamount to state-sponsored discrimination.

“With his signature today, Gov. Abbott has joined the lieutenant governor and other lawmakers in taking Texas down a dark and cruel road,” Kathy Miller of the Texas Freedom Network said in a prepared statement. “This law’s clear intent is to allow service providers that receive state tax dollars to misuse religion as a license to discriminate against LGBT families and children in the state’s child-welfare system.”

Related story: Bill Would Allow Adoption Agencies To Ban Gays, Muslims, Jews, Interfaith Couples

The bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. James Frank, disputed the notion on social media, writing that "HB 3859 bans no one" and includes a mechanism for the state to offer alternative providers to anyone denied the right to be adoptive or foster parents based on providers' religious beliefs. Frank said the new law would actually help, not deter, the ability of finding permanent homes for abused and neglected children.

In laying out the bill in May, Frank said, "I filed this bill for one reason and that is to help secure and expand the foster care capacity in Texas."

He rebuked the notion that his bill was exclusionary. "Specifically, 3859 allows foster care providers to make reasonable declination of certain child welfare services if they conflict with sincere religious beliefs," he said. "It does not, members — it does not — allow the provider to do anything they want but say no in rather specific and limited circumstances."

He dismissed detractors' claims of inherent discrimination in the bill as "hysteria" by critics, saying, "Let me tell you a couple of things the bill does not do. Despite the fabricated hysteria over 3859, it does not ban anyone from participating but rather encourages all to participate. Members, nothing in this bill prevents individuals and couples from becoming verified as adoptive or foster parents. It's about specialization, not discrimination."

On his Twitter page, Frank describes himself this way: "Husband, father, imperfect Christ-follower, businessman and state legislator in the best state in the most amazing country on earth." He represents the state's District 69, which encompasses Archer, Baylor, Clay, Foard, Knox and Wichita counties in North Texas.

>>> Photo of Rep. James Frank via Texas House of Representatives