FIRST ON FOX – A group of republicans Attorneys general are pushing the Biden administration to roll back a new rule that they say will effectively exclude Christian families from fostering children and jeopardize the foster care system nationwide.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall and 18 of his Republican colleagues sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services on Monday alerting them that a proposed new rule that changes requirements for foster care violates the Constitution and discriminates against people who practice the Christian faith.
In addition to discriminating on religion, the attorneys general say the proposed rule “will harm children by limiting the number of available foster families, families by risking kinship placements, and states by increasing costs and decreasing support options.”
“These injuries will be suffered while HHS fails to address a problem that the proposed rule does not even prove exists in foster care,” the AGs write.
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Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, file)
The rule, Safe and Appropriate Foster Care Placement Requirements, would require foster parents and foster families to use “the identified pronouns and chosen name of a child in foster care, and would allow the child to dress in an age-appropriate manner that he or she believes reflects his or her self-identification.” gender identity and expression.
According to the letter, the rule “seeks to indirectly accomplish what the The Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional just two years ago: removing faith-based providers from the foster care system if they do not conform to their religious beliefs regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.
In 2021, the Supreme Court, in a case called Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, ruled that Philadelphia’s refusal to contract with a Catholic social services group unless it agreed to certify same-sex couples as foster parents violated the first amendment.
The letter notes that HHS projects that the number of children in the foster care system will increase to approximately 416,500 by 2027. In 2022, there would have been 391,000 children in foster care.
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The Supreme Court ruled that Philadelphia’s refusal to contract with a Catholic social services group violated the First Amendment. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file)
Attorneys General Say “Caring for children in need is a duty of the Christian faith” and furthermore, the foster care system would be crippled if Christian families did not open their homes to children in foster care reception.
“The foster care system depends on individuals and faith-based organizations,” the letter states.
For example, the attorneys general cite that in Arkansas, a faith-based group has been credited with recruiting nearly half of the state’s foster families, and that in New Mexico, all private placement agencies are Christians.
According to a 2002 study cited in the letter, foster parents recruited by a church or other religious organization foster their children for 2.6 years longer than the average foster parent. And practicing Christians are three times more likely to seriously consider foster care than the general population, according to a study by the Barna Group.
“States need faith-based organizations in their foster care system. The proposed rule will alienate religious individuals and organizations, increasing strain on the system by reducing the number of available foster homes,” the attorneys general wrote.
“The federal government should be looking for ways to increase the number of foster homes, not decrease them,” they said.
Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Health and Human Services (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Attorney General Marshall accused President Biden of “harassing” his state of alabama.
“Joe Biden continues to harass our state and others like him by implicitly threatening to withhold federal funding for children in need if we do not conform to his ideology, but our values are not for sale,” said Marshall in a statement to Fox News Digital.
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“Since the first century, Christians around the world have answered the call to provide a home and family for children who have neither. Alabama has a foster care community and “I have a particularly strong faith-based adoption policy, and I will fight every day against this administration for their every step of the way,” he added.
HHS did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request at the time of publication.
