From the Detroit News. The title proved difficult in being concise.
Shameful. This is to preserve the ability of faith-based organizations to continue to take state funds to run adoption programs while denying same-sex couples the ability to receive adoption services. I worked for an agency that included adoption that was formerly faith-based but thankfully they had dropped their religious affiliation decades ago. Catholic Charities closed up its adoption program in DC and in Illinois when equality laws were finally enacted and I'm sure they would do the same in Michigan if it were to happen.
Edit:
And the bill passed.
Detroit News said:Lawmakers continued a Michigan battle over religious and civil rights Wednesday with the passage of legislation allowing faith-based agencies to turn away gay and lesbian couples seeking state-supported adoptions.
The Legislature is sending bills to Gov. Rick Snyder that are narrower in scope than the religious freedom restoration act that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed last March, then revised amid a national furor over letting business owners deny services based on religious reasons.
...
Under the proposals, faith-based adoption agencies could refuse their services in cases that would violate their "sincerely held religious beliefs." The agencies would have to tell couples where else they could find adoption services.
The Republican-controlled Senate passed the bills on party-line votes of 26-12. The GOP-led House agreed to the Senate changes Wednesday afternoon.
...
Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof said the legislation "protects the valuable role" of the state's faith-based agencies in publicly funded adoptions.
"We just codified what has been the law for five decades that faith-based agencies are allowed to exercise their religious freedom in placing (adoptive children)," he said.
...
But he added that state practices of the last 50 years regarding faith-based adoption agencies "may not be the practice in the future, so we want to make sure it's codified in law.
Shameful. This is to preserve the ability of faith-based organizations to continue to take state funds to run adoption programs while denying same-sex couples the ability to receive adoption services. I worked for an agency that included adoption that was formerly faith-based but thankfully they had dropped their religious affiliation decades ago. Catholic Charities closed up its adoption program in DC and in Illinois when equality laws were finally enacted and I'm sure they would do the same in Michigan if it were to happen.
Edit:
And the bill passed.