Posted on 09/07/2022 1:46:46 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A federal judge ruled that New York state could not require a Christian family services agency to provide adoption services to unmarried or same-sex couples.
New Hope Family Services in Syracuse professes that it cannot provide adoption services to same-sex or unmarried couples because of religious beliefs. It filed a federal lawsuit against the state Office of Children and Family Services in 2018 after the agency told it to revise its “discriminatory and impermissible” policy or shut down its adoption program, according to court filings.
U.S. District Court Judge Mae A. D’Agostino in Albany cited free speech protections Tuesday in granting New Hope a summary judgment and ruling the state agency couldn’t compel New Hope to provide adoption services to unmarried or same-sex couples.
An attorney for New Hope said shutting down an agency for its religious beliefs serves no one.
“New Hope’s faith-guided services don’t coerce anyone and do nothing to interfere with other adoption providers who have different beliefs about family and the best interests of children,” Roger Brooks of the Alliance Defending Freedom said in a prepared release.
The state Office of Children and Family Services said in a prepared statement it was “deeply disappointed with the decision and maintains that discrimination on any basis should not be tolerated. We’re reviewing our options for next steps.”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Seems nearly impossible for blue states to follow the constitution
Hochul’s internal polling must be abysmal.
One reason many Christians are adopting or fostering through their church rather then the state is that they do not want to be forced to sterilize the children they are caring for.
"Gender affirming care" AKA sterilization, is pretty much a requirement if you foster through the state anymore.
New Hope Family Services is not the only adoption service in town. Unmarried and same-sex clients can always go elsewhere.
Wow! This is great news, right on the heels of a federal judge in Texas saying that PrEP should not be provided in insurance plans against companies’ convictions.
The Leftist-secular Humanists and their agendas cannot accept that attitudes about rightness or wrongness of “gay” relationships constitutes belief systems, whether stated by a religion or a religious institution, or not.
While the government can declare that direct government action cannot discriminate against “gay couples” that prohibition does not extend to private institutions nor can it make private institutions mere adjuncts of “government policy”.
The difference between the goverment and the private sphere is two fold. The government is everyhone’s government and must serve everyone equally, and the government has the power to legalally coherce actions, where private institutions serve their privately derived missions and operation by free association not cohercion. The latter status is supposed to limit the former by demandindg a wall between government direct action - government employment, general operations of government, opeations of police, prosecution and the judiciary - from governmen intrusuion on the speech and religious freedoms guarnateed to our private actions.
Every now and then, they get one right.
He ruled for religious freedom?> Needs to be impeached immediately.
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