Arkansas to protect faith-based adoption, foster care agencies

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders late last week signed into law a bill ensuring faith-based organizations can follow their moral convictions when placing children in homes. Under the Keep Kids First Act, state officials cannot force faith-based groups to place children in homes not aligned with the groups’ religious beliefs. Agencies can continue to place children with families who affirm Biblical beliefs about gender and marriage. The bill also protects Christian adoptive or foster parents from discrimination if they refuse to accept government policy about sexual orientation or gender identity that conflicts with Biblical truth.

Who opposed the law? American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas claimed it could exclude LGBTQ individuals from being able to foster or adopt a child.

Have there been any similar bills passed recently? The Kansas Legislature last week voted to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill called the Adoption Conscience Act. The law prohibits the state from requiring someone to affirm governmental policies on sexual orientation or gender identity as a prerequisite for fostering or adopting a child. Under the act, government officials cannot bar eligible individuals from serving as a foster parent because of their sincerely held religious beliefs.

Do other states have laws about this issue? Several states across the country require foster parents to affirm a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity regardless of their own moral beliefs. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys last year filed a lawsuit on behalf of two Vermont families who say the state revoked their foster care licenses because of their faith. Meanwhile, a court in 2022 ruled in favor of New Hope Family Services in New York to allow the faith-based adoption agency to place children with traditional families. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 unanimously ruled that officials in Philadelphia could not exclude Catholic Social Services from its foster program simply because the agency refused to place children with same-sex couples.

Dig deeper: Read Katy Faust’s opinion piece about how the Supreme Court’s decision about same-sex marriage infringes on a child’s right to have a mother and a father.