Michigan Faith-Based Adoption Agencies Win Big in Court, Allowed to Keep Following Their Religion
(Worthy News) – A district judge in Michigan has ruled that a faith-based adoption agency can continue to practice its religious beliefs and still partner with the state in connecting foster children with families who want to adopt them.
Chad and Melissa Buck are parents to five special-needs children. They adopted their children through St. Vincent Catholic Charities, a faith-based adoption agency that’s been under contract with the state of Michigan for 70 years, and is one of the state’s most successful agencies in placing foster children with adoptive parents.
But despite St. Vincent’s distinctive success in helping foster kids find forever homes, the state of Michigan’s Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel, decided she would rather shut down St. Vincent rather than allow it to continue the longstanding practice, based on its religious beliefs, of referring same-sex and unmarried couples to other agencies. Attorney General Nessel, the first openly gay office-holder in Michigan, said a 2015 law that allowed the Catholic adoption agency to do these referrals based on their religious beliefs would not apply if St. Vincent did business with the state. [ Source: CBN News (Read More…) ]