Free Republic

Michigan has moved to protect the religious freedom of adoption agencies. Both houses of the Michigan legislature passed the bill in recent days and Gov. Rick Snyder signed it into law Thursday. Gary Glenn, a state representative and head of the American Family Association of Michigan, says the law protects faith-based adoption agencies so they can continue to provide adoption referral services to the state and to local governments without violating their religious convictions.

Bucking the trend of states that have caved on religious liberty due to fear of reprisals from gay activists, Michigan passed a law Thursday offering protections to religious adoption agencies from being forced to place children in the homes of same-sex couples. The law had broad support in the Republican controlled legislature and was signed on Thursday by Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican. Snyder has voiced opposition to a broader religious liberty bill statewide that mirrors the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by former President Bill Clinton. RFRA protections, once non-controversial and bipartisan now face the ire of gay...

LANSING, MI — Private faith-based adoption agencies that receive state funding but choose to deny service to gay parents on religious grounds have won the blessing of Michigan's Republican-led Legislature. The state Senate, in an unexpected and unannounced move, took up religious objection adoption legislation on Wednesday, approving the three-bill package in a series of 26-12 votes.

“I thought I was a broken person.” That’s what I explained to my husband just after I told him my story.My mom married my stepfather while she was still pregnant with me, so it wasn’t until years later that I found out he was not my biological father.  I never knew my biological father — it was a family secret, and to this day, I still don’t know him.  This family secret was not the only one, but secrets can become normal for someone unless they are revealed.Growing up was “normal” for me, I thought.  I have three younger brothers  —...

Adopted 'Father' and 'Son' to Marry Pennsylvania couple Bill Novak and Norman MacArthur are legally adopted father and son, but soon they will marry. The couple of more than 50 years registered as domestic partners in 1994, but were told after moving from New York City to Pennsylvania that “hell would freeze over before Pennsylvania approves same sex marriage.” Since they needed to do estate planning, a lawyer advised them that the only way to become legally related was through adoption. This year, however, a federal district court declared the state’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, so the couple petitioned to...

In 1928, 16-year-old Minka Disbrow was on a picnic in the woods when she was assaulted and raped. Suddenly, this innocent farm girl was pregnant and terrified. The baby was secretly born, named Betty Jane, and placed for adoption. For decades, Minka wrote letters trying to receive updates on her daughter. She kept loving and praying for Betty Jane, even though she never thought they’d meet again. Nearly 80 years later, Minka whispered a prayer: “Lord, I’d like to see Betty Jane before I die. I promise I won’t bother her or interrupt her life. I just want to lay...

In 1928, 16-year-old Minka Disbrow was on a picnic in the woods when she was assaulted and raped. Suddenly, this innocent farm girl was pregnant and terrified. The baby was secretly born, named Betty Jane, and placed for adoption. For decades, Minka wrote letters trying to receive updates on her daughter. She kept loving and praying for Betty Jane, even though she never thought they’d meet again. Nearly 80 years later, Minka whispered a prayer: “Lord, I’d like to see Betty Jane before I die. I promise I won’t bother her or interrupt her life. I just want to lay...

Sue Docken’s start in life, in 1951, with a no-questions-asked cash adoption at the hands of a midwife, had strong elements of the crime scene that it was. Her adoptive father was told to stay in the car and keep the motor running. His wife went into a nondescript office building in Butte, Mont., where she met with the midwife, Gertrude Pitkanen, and was handed the hours-old infant and the afterbirth, offered a peek through a curtain at the young mother lying in a bed, and told to leave. The afterbirth was thrown out the window on the drive home,...

Florida’s nearly 40-year-old ban on gay adoption - which hasn’t been enforced for the past five years - is about to be tossed out by the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature. But it’s not going without a fierce debate, including whether the state should adopt a separate law that would let private agencies use religious or moral grounds to turn away gay couples seeking to adopt children. Some Republicans say this “conscience” law is needed to ensure that faith-based organizations handling adoptions will keep offering their services, but other legislators have compared the measure to Indiana’s religious objections law and said it...

DAYTON -- Imagine never knowing who your biological parents are, or where you came from. That is the reality for 400K people born in Ohio from the mid 1960's until 1996. Their birth records have been sealed, until this Friday. The law originally passed in 1963 was designed to give birth parents some protection, and it was heavily supported by the adoptive parents. But fast forward 50 years, and attitudes have changed. "I've always known that I was adopted... and I've always known that I wanted to find my birth parents," said Beth Miller who described her childhood as ordinary...

The heart-wrenching yet inspiring story of Jong-rak Lee, a pastor who has made his life's mission to save abandoned babies left on the streets of Seoul, South Korea, is coming to theaters on March 3rd by way of a Focus on the Family documentary titled The Drop Box. Since 2009, Pastor Lee has taken society's most vulnerable members--unwanted babies--into his home through a "Drop Box," where the infants could be dropped off rather than left on the streets to die. The Drop Box is equipped with lights and a heater and reads in Korean, "Please don't throw away unwanted or...

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently announced it will review a November decision by the Sixth Circuit Court—which represents Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee—that upheld marriage as between a man and a woman. Will the Supreme Court side with the two judges in the majority, or with the one dissenting judge? The majority ruling dismisses any possibility of a constitutional right to gay marriage, while the dissent focuses on an entirely different question of whether gay parents are as good as straight ones. The latter controversy is something that the majority decision explicitly refused to weigh in on, so...

It’s hard to tell my story without sounding like I am blaming people. I think it is important to know the difference between explanations, blaming, and excuses. I just think it’s important for others to be able to identify. Like so many experience, what seemed to me a happy home when I was small, turned into dysfunction, heartache, and disaster over the course of my double-digit years and throughout high school. My Dad was a fun-loving and good-humored man with a tortured soul who eventually battled his demons with alcohol alone. I watched my childhood knight slowly, then suddenly slide...

Over the Christmas holiday, Christian pro-golfer Bubba Watson announced that he and wife Angie Ball are in the process of adopting a daughter. On Christmas Eve, Watson posted a picture of his son holding a baby girl in his arms on his Instagram account with the message, "Caleb has a brand new baby sister, Dakota. Watson Family is now 4 and we are so blessed! #ABCD." He published a second picture days later of himself with little Dakota captioned, "Daddy-daughter Selfie!! #ProudDad." The two-time Masters winner and his former WNBA playing wife are no strangers to adoption. The couple adopted...

One young woman, a college student at Texas Christian University, tells the following story: “Several years ago, a 19-year-old mother found herself pregnant in Houston, Texas from a one night stand. She had a thriving acting and modeling career and was planning to move to LA to persue more in the performing arts as soon as she had enough money. Her parents were ex-pats in Indonesia, and she was living alone in the big city with no one to turn to. She had enough money to get an abortion, and she had the legal right to get an abortion since...

Devonte Hart is touching the hearts of hundreds of thousands across the country. An image taken at a Ferguson Rally shows Devonte hugging a police officer with tears streaming down his face. As soon as the picture was posted this 12 year old boy from Portland, Oregon became a symbol of hope in the midst of a nation divided by racial tensions. Devonte was at the rally with his mother, Jen Hart. As Devonte held a sign that said ‘Free Hugs’ a police officer came over to talk with him. After making general conversation Sgt. Bret Barnum asked Devonte why...

During this National Adoption Month, a pro-abortion website called “RH Reality Check” released an article entitled Adoption Is Not a Universal Alternative to Abortion, No Matter What Anti-Choicers Say. The point seems to be to assuage pro-choice advocates who like abortion more than adoption– a feat during National Adoption Month (November), when adoption advocates flood the internet with positive stories. Adoption must be confusing to abortion advocates. It’s a choice that, instead of asking What do I want right now?, asks, What is best for the person who depends on me for his everything? Contrasted with the egocentric nature of...

Jeane Briggs and her husband, Paul, have five biological children and 29 adopted ones. Taking in orphans, especially those with health problems or disabilities, is ‘what my husband and I feel called to do by our faith,’ the 58-year-old told The News. And there are plans to continue to expand the family.Think the holidays are chaotic at your house? Imagine celebrating with 34 children — all of whom are your own. Jeane Briggs, 58, and her husband Paul, 59, have five biological children and 29 adopted ones. The Briggs kids are between ages 35 and 4 . While they don't...

He's a city cop by day - but by night, Detective Jack Mook is working on his toughest case yet. Mook, a Gulf War veteran who also teaches boxing to Pittsburgh-area kids, fostered two of his young students after learning they were living in abusive conditions with a foster family. And now after two years, Mook and the boys, 11-year-old Jessee and his 15-year-old brother Josh, have finally become a legal family - after Mook adopted them in September. It means the bachelor, 45, is now adapting to a new routine of homework and healthy meals.

There is a point where decision on contentious, difficult issues is unavoidable. With respect to homosexual conduct, the American Evangelical church has reached that point. There is no ignoring the determination of the gay and lesbian activists to insist upon complete social and legal normalization of homosexual conduct; from the adoption of children by same-sex couples to the judicial recognition of same-sex unions as marriages every bit as complete as those enjoyed by heterosexual couples. Thus, Christians cannot avoid the need to decide which side they are on. The Supreme Court's decision earlier this month to allow current judicial rulings...