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发帖数: 19713 | 1 By Trudy Ring
General Assembly Building in Richmond, Virginia x390 | ADVOCATE.COM
The Virginia General Assembly building
A Virginia state senator has introduced legislation that would prohibit the
state from contracting with adoption agencies that discriminate against
prospective parents on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Adam Ebbin, a Democrat from Alexandria, in northern Virginia, introduced the
bill last week, the Associated Press reports. It also covers other
characteristics, including race, religion, sex, family status, national
origin, and disability.
The move comes after the state’s Board of Social Services last month
declined to enact guidelines that would prohibit anti-LGBT discrimination in
adoption.
“One major issue is whether charities that receive tax dollars should be
able to discriminate,” Ebbin said Friday. “Adoption is a public act that
goes through state courts, and no government agent should engage in
discrimination.”
Competing legislation has been introduced in the Senate and House of
Delegates that would allow agencies to deny adoption or foster care
placements that would go against the agencies’ religious tenets,
essentially writing the Board of Social Services guidelines into law.
The state has 120 local departments of social services, and there are 77
state-licensed private agencies with which they can contract for adoption
and foster care services.
The issue of discrimination by private, religious agencies has come up
recently in other states. In Illinois, for instance, the state ended its
contracts with Catholic Charities agencies for adoption services when the
groups refused to serve gay parents in civil unions, as required by a law
that went into effect last year. |
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