A bill that would allow adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples based on religious objections has passed in the House of Representatives.

The legislation — HB 836, sponsored by Rep. Tim Rudd, R-Murfreesboro — has been opposed by LGBTQ advocates, most vocally the Tennessee Equality Project.

The Senate version, sponsored by Sen. Mark Pody, R-Lebanon, is scheduled to be heard in judiciary committee on Tuesday. The House bill passed on a vote of 67 to 22, with three members not casting votes.

Rudd's bill declares that no licensed adoption agency would be required to participate in a child placement if doing so would "violate the agency's written religious or moral convictions or policies."

It also prohibits the Department of Children's Services from denying an agency's application because of the group's refusal to place a child with a family based on religious objections, as well as protects the agency from a lawsuit for such a refusal.

"We have children across this state looking for loving homes," said Rep. John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, who spoke in opposition to the bill. "Why are we wanting to do anything to prohibit a loving couple or a family of any denomination, any religion, any moral conviction from being able to care for a child and take it in and provide for it?

"We have got to stop discriminating against people. We have gone far enough."

Rep. Jeremy Faison, R-Cosby, said he was a champion of and willing to "fight for us to have diversity," but suggested it was hypocritical for Democrats to attempt to stop the free practice of religion.

"What we're doing is saying if you have a religious faith, we as a body are going to intervene before the courts do and we're going to stand with you and say we will stand with you in tolerance and allow you to be you," Faison said of the legislation.

Similar legislation has passed several other sates, including last year in both Kansas and Oklahoma. As part of terms of a legal settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union, the state of Michigan last month announced it would cease to fund adoption agencies denying services to same-sex couples on religious grounds.

Tennessee's attorney general determined in 2007 that there was no prohibition in Tennessee statutes against gay and lesbian couples adopting children.

Chris Sanders, executive director of Tennessee Equality Project, said after the vote that the "bill clearly opens the door to taxpayer-funded discrimination in foster care and adoption."

"If this bill becomes law, same-sex couples, people of various religious beliefs, and people with no religious beliefs now face the prospect of being turned away from adoption agencies that they helped fund because they are labeled morally or religiously objectionable, which leaves children and youth with longer wait times for permanent homes," Sanders said.

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.

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