In recent years, we have seen increased efforts to exclude same-sex couples from fostering and adopting children. Several states have introduced or passed “license to discriminate” laws which permit taxpayer-funded, government-contracted child placing agencies (CPAs) to refuse to serve families that fail to meet their religious litmus tests.

Earlier this year, the Trump/Pence administration waded into this issue, granting CPAs in South Carolina a waiver from federal nondiscrimination regulations. As a result, Lambda Legal sued them both.

With ongoing assaults on multiple national fronts, child welfare policy may not be at the forefront of many LGBTQ folks’ minds, but government-endorsement of religious discrimination has alarming and far-reaching implications for everyone who values the separation of church and state, as well as the welfare of children.

Within the child welfare system, such license to discriminate laws and policies are discriminatory towards not just same-sex couples, but towards all families of different faith traditions; both Jewish and Catholic families have been turned away from fostering or even just mentoring foster youth.

Discriminatory laws also disadvantage the 443,000 youth currently in foster care who need placements. Excluding qualified families reduces the pool of placement options for youth in care; same-sex couples are an important source of placements and actually are seven times more likely than different-sex couples to be raising a foster or adoptive child.

Additionally, LGBTQ youth are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system (making up 20%, as opposed to only 5-7% of the general population).

Allowing agencies to work exclusively with families who oppose LGBTQ equality puts young people at risk of discrimination and other harms and deprives them of opportunities to be affirmed and supported.