June 14, 2011

Catholic Charities suspends foster and adoption programs

Our daily mission is to help birthmothers and adoptive families with adoption. We don’t receive state subsidies and we are not a “faith-based” agency and we don’t get into politics. Not quite the situation with our neighbor, Illinois. Three dioceses of Catholic Charities in Illinois, decided to close their doors at the onset of the new civil unions law granting same-sex couples all state-sanctioned rights of marriage, including the right to adopt. We all shouted “Yay!” on June 1 when the law took effect followed by a “Eww…” when we heard about The Charities closing, displacing hundreds of foster children and putting many people out of work. Now, in retaliation, Charities are suing the state siting religious freedom. Catholic Charities states they will refer civil union couples to other child welfare agencies – sounds good to us, but will that just make it all well and good? What is this fight truly about anyway? It is always a reason to celebrate when anti-discriminatory laws come into effect, but when that is the reason for an organization to close its doors on hundreds of kids the celebration becomes bitter. As a privately run agency, this type of battle won’t make our books, but we will sit back, watch and perhaps be able to help the fallout.