Posted on 03/25/2022 5:54:45 PM PDT by marshmallow
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has agreed that action against the charity for this policy would constitute a First Amendment violation.
Michigan officials tried to bar funds for Catholic child placement agencies. Instead, they are paying at least $800,000 in legal fees in settling two agencies’ successful First Amendment challenges.
Catholic Charities West Michigan is the second Catholic agency in the state to reach a six-figure settlement with officials who had wrongly barred state funds to foster and adoption agencies that did not place children with same-sex couples.
“Catholic Charities West Michigan meets a critical need as one of the region’s largest social service providers, reuniting children with their birth parents and placing foster kids in loving homes,” Jeremiah Galus, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, said March 21.
“We are pleased Catholic Charities can continue its vital mission serving vulnerable families in Michigan without being punished by the government simply because it’s operating according to its religious beliefs—the very reason the ministry exists in the first place."
The Catholic Charities affiliate is under the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids. Its lawsuit asked the court to protect it from being “singled out, punished, or disfavored because of its religious beliefs—beliefs that motivate its care for children, birth parents, and other vulnerable members of the community,” Alliance Defending Freedom said.
Catholic Charities West Michigan policy prefers to place children with adoptive or foster families of a married mother and father. This policy came under fire when the state attorney general sided with two same-sex couples and the ACLU which had charged it is not allowed under state anti-discrimination law.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
Thank God for this and may it wave over the whole country.
The homosexual agenda is indefensible.
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