U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) on Jan. 30 sponsored bipartisan legislation to ensure that organizations with religious or moral convictions are allowed to continue to provide services for children.
“All service providers – religious or otherwise – should have a seat at the table when it comes to giving kids loving families to call their own,” Rep. Kelly said. “The more groups providing these crucial services, the better.”
The Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2019, H.R. 897, would stipulate that religious organizations, which have a long history of providing child welfare services that predates government involvement, “should continue contracting with and receiving grants from governmental entities to provide child welfare services,” according to the text of the bill provided by Rep. Kelly’s office.
“Religious organizations cannot provide certain child welfare services, such as foster-care or adoption placements, without receiving a government contract, grant or license,” according to the bill’s text.
Among the members joining Rep. Kelly in introducing H.R. 897 are U.S. Reps. Tom Cole (R-OK), Bill Flores (R-TX), and Collin Peterson (D-MN).
“Faith-based adoption and foster care providers have historically played an unrivaled role in caring for our country’s most vulnerable kids,” said Rep. Kelly. “They are the very providers that we should be encouraging and promoting, not punishing.”
U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) also on Jan. 30 sponsored the same-named S. 274 to prevent child welfare services providers from being excluded from offering such services based on their organization’s religious beliefs. Original cosponsors of S. 274 include U.S. Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Steve Daines (R-MT), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).
“The decision to adopt or foster a child isn’t always an easy decision, but it is one of the most loving choices a family can make,” Sen. Enzi said. “That is why it is so important that adoptive and foster parents have access to the provider of their choice.”
“The government should not be in the business of forcing faith-based child welfare providers to abandon their sincerely held religious beliefs, especially at the expense of finding a new home for a child in need,” he added.
Rep. Kelly pointed out that hundreds of thousands of children depend on faith-based organizations being able to do their jobs unhindered “by agenda-driven activists in and out of government.”
Earlier this month, the lawmaker said, the federal Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services granted an exemption requested by South Carolina to protect the religious liberty of its state faith-based foster care providers.
“The governor of South Carolina, Henry McMaster, asked for the exception in light of the discrimination against faith-based organizations arising from the December 2016 grants regulation issued by the Obama Administration, which became effective in January 2017,” Rep. Kelly said, calling for an end to such discrimination.
H.R. 897 has been referred for consideration to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, while S. 274 is under review in the U.S. Senate Finance Committee.