My case for not applying discrimination law in ways that drive conservative religious agencies out of adoption work. [Cato at Liberty, drawing on my contributions to Scott Shackford’s Reason piece on libertarians and gays, which deserves a read on its own]
One Comment
Here, the government isn’t just funding these agencies, it is directly giving them the authority to, within certain guidelines, carry out one of of the government’s most important responsibilities: the care of vulnerable children. It’s not unreasonable to expect that, in return, those agencies don’t act in a bigoted way in performing governmental duties. We wouldn’t tolerate a publicly supported adoption agency in 2015 that refused to place children with couples in racially-mixed marriages or one that imposed religious tests, so why is discrimination against gays and lesbians ok in the name of “thinking about the children?”
The augment works just as well to say that Catholic Charities should compromise and not discriminate because it would be best for the children. Just as they place children in families that commit other sins according to the Catholic Church, they could place children with gays and lesbians in order to get more kids adopted. As they are a private religious organization, nobody should be able to force them to do so, but “follow the rules or get out” is a perfectly reasonable response to someone performing a governmental function.