Thread by @HRC

1/ Today, @realDonaldTrump praised the actions of his administration & radical lawmakers in places like Kansas & Oklahoma who are licensing anti-LGBTQ discrimination in child welfare services.

Here's what you need to know about the dangerous consequences of measures like these:

2/ Nine states, including 5 states in the last 3 years, have passed laws allowing taxpayer-funded child welfare programs (adoption and foster care services) to pick and choose to whom they provide the services the government has paid them to provide.

3/ These state laws allow agencies to refuse to work with #LGBTQ people, and some also allow them to refuse various medical treatments to LGBTQ children in their care.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲.

4/ At the state level, these licenses to discriminate are anti-LGBTQ.

𝑩𝑼𝑻 the framing of these bills as being about a provider’s religious objections means that the discriminatory impact can go much further, including interfaith couples, single parents, etc.

5/ @HHSGov recently granted a waiver to South Carolina’s foster care program to excuse it from requirements that the federally-funded program not discriminate on the basis of religion. hrc.org/blog/hhs-decis…

6/The waiver was about making sure an agency in SC wouldn’t lose its federal funding because it refused to work with Jewish people.

🚨The HHS waiver then opened the door to federally-funded discrimination justified by religious belief against any number of prospective parents.🚨

7/ This could include:
✖️ single parents
✖️ LGBTQ individuals
✖️ same-sex couples
✖️ parents who previously have been divorced
✖️ interfaith couples
✖️ people of faith that happen to be of another religion

8/ Most of all, the HHS waiver & these licenses to discriminate 𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐝𝐬 in need of a loving home.

It isn’t in the best interest of a child to deny them a qualified, loving family simply because that family doesn’t share all of the tenets of the placing agency’s faith.

9/ Statistics suggest that an estimated two million LGBTQ adults in the U.S. are interested in adoption, but the LGBTQ community often remains an untapped resource when it comes to finding families for children and youth in foster care.

10/ Additionally, research consistently shows that #LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in the foster care system, due to many factors including family rejection because of their LGBTQ status.

Once in care, LGBTQ youth are especially vulnerable to discrimination & mistreatment.

11/These bills harm people like Lupe, who aged out of foster care, but who eventually found her adoptive fathers.

Children who deserve a forever home should not be forced to age out or wait when a qualified family is waiting to adopt or foster the child.

12/12 Learn more via @HRC’s report, “Disregarding the Best Interest of the Child: License to Discriminate In Child Welfare Services,” which details the harms of efforts to write anti-LGBTQ discrimination by child welfare agencies into law. assets2.hrc.org/files/assets/r…