“Every decision that is made by a provider of child welfare services must be grounded in doing what is the best interest of the child, period.  Providing care for these kids is critically important, and too many kids languish in the foster care system because there aren’t enough foster and adoptive parents for each child.  Allowing a federal contractor the ability to refuse to work with qualified prospective parents - limiting the pool of prospective parents even further - is directly counter to the best interests of the children waiting for families,” said Cathryn Oakley, HRC State Legislative Director & Senior Counsel. “The federal government has a compelling interest in ensuring federal contractors are providing quality care, and in ensuring that taxpayers aren’t footing the bill for taxpayer-funded discrimination.  This waiver is unconscionable, in no small part because it prioritizes federal contractors over kids in need of families.”

Federal law prohibits discrimination in federally-funded programs against foster parents on religious grounds, but ten states permit discrimination by state-licensed foster care organizations against LGBTQ people,same-sex coupless and others if doing so conflicts with the organization’s religious beliefs.

HRC recently released a report, titled Disregarding the Best Interest of the Child: License to Discriminate In Child Welfare Services, detailing the harms of efforts to write anti-LGBTQ discrimination by child welfare agencies into law. Statistics suggest that an estimated two million LGBTQ adults in the U.S. are interested in adoption, but the LGBTQ community often remains an untapped resource when it comes to finding families for children and youth in foster care.  The report debunks the myth that having more providers is the key to higher rates of placement in homes; the bottleneck is not the number of providers, but the number of prospective parents. Where providers have ceased to provide services rather than comply with nondiscrimination laws, placement rates did not decrease.significantly as a result.

Further, research consistently shows that LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in the foster care system, as many have been rejected by their families of origin because of their LGBTQ status, and are especially vulnerable to discrimination and mistreatment while in foster care. Granting this waiver  will only exacerbate these challenges faced by LGBTQ young people.

The Human Rights Campaign is America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. HRC envisions a world where LGBTQ people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work, and in every community.

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