Survey: Catholics, like fellow Americans, favor abortion restrictions

Nashville, Tenn., Apr 4, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- As other US states have defunded adoption agencies that won’t place children with same-sex couples, the Tennessee House on Monday passed a bill meant to ensure these agencies’ religious freedom.

HB 836 was passed in the lower house of the state legislature April 1 by a 67-22 vote.

The bill would grant legal protections to adoption organizations which uphold marriage as a union between a man and woman and provides its services accordingly.

It is sponsored by Rep. Tim Rudd and five other Republicans.

The bill now faces the GOP-controlled Senate. Governor Bill Lee, also a Republican, has not yet given his position on the bill.  

The measure protects religious agencies from being subjected to lawsuits for not placing children with same-sex couples. It also states that the department of children’s services cannot withhold a license from agencies that do so.

“No private licensed child-placing agency shall be required to perform, assist, counsel, recommend, consent to, refer, or participate in any placement of a child for foster care or adoption when the proposed placement would violate the agency’s written religious or moral convictions or policies,” the bill states.

Although religious adoption agencies in Tennessee have not been prevented from acting out of their moral convictions, the bill comes at a time when Catholic agencies in other states have been shut down or denied access to funding.  

Rudd said the bill is comparable to cautionary steps taken by Kansas and Oklahoma, who passed similar laws last year.

“We’re doing the same as nine other states have done,” said Rudd of Murfreesboro, according to the AP. “Throughout the country, these faith-based organizations have been sued to the point they’re being driven out of business due to costs.”

Critics of the bill have said the legislation would be used to permit LGBT discrimination. According to the AP, Democratic Rep. John Clemmons questioned the practicality of religious agencies turning away same-sex couples.

“We have children across this state looking for loving homes, why are we doing anything to prohibit a loving family or a couple from being able to care of a child and take it in and provide for it, why?” said Clemmons.

Laws barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or barring state funding from adoption agencies considered discriminatory have shut down Catholic adoption agencies in Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and Illinois, among others.

Last month, it was announced that Michigan state funds would be barred from adoption agencies for the same reason. It followed a settlement headed by the ACLU and same-sex couples against two Christian adoption agencies. The lawsuit ruled that non-discrimination provisions must be enforced within state contracts.

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Archbishop Dennis Schnurr celebrates Mass at the tomb of St. Peter along with other bishops from the United States’ Region VI during their ad limina visit to the Holy See. / David Kerr/CNA

Denver Newsroom, Jul 20, 2021 / 17:01 pm (CNA).

The Archbishop of Cincinnati on Tuesday said he was not informed of President Biden’s upcoming visit to a Catholic university in his archdiocese. He did not approve the university hosting the event.

On Wednesday, July 21, President Joe Biden will appear at a townhall event broadcast by CNN and hosted by Mount Saint Joseph University in Cincinnati. The university is sponsored by the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati.

News of the event’s location was reported on Tuesday. Archbishop Dennis Schnurr then issued a statement saying that he “has not been contacted by any involved party” regarding Biden’s appearance at the university.

“Archbishop Schnurr has therefore not been asked for, nor would he have granted, his approval for any such event to occur on Catholic premises,” the archdiocese stated.

The archdiocese did not immediately respond to CNA’s request for clarification as to why Archbishop Schnurr would have refused approval of the event. Mount Saint Joseph University did not immediately respond to a request for comment by CNA on Tuesday afternoon.

Regarding the July 21 townhall, CNN.com reported that CNN anchor Don Lemon will moderate the one-hour event, which will cover “a wide range of issues facing the nation ranging from Covid-19 to the economy.”

President Biden is the second Catholic president in U.S. history. While the U.S. bishops’ conference has praised some of his administration’s policies on immigration and fighting poverty, conference president Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles stated in January his concern about Biden’s policies on abortion, gender issues, and religious freedom.

“I must point out that our new President has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender,” Gomez stated.  “Of deep concern is the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences.”

In January, Biden stated his support for Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, on the 48^th anniversary of the ruling.

Biden’s budget request for the 2022 fiscal year included taxpayer-funded abortion by excluding the Hyde Amendment. The amendment has been federal policy since 1976, and prohibits federal funding of abortions in Medicaid. Biden once supported the policy as a U.S. senator, but reversed his support in 2019 as a presidential candidate.

He also supports the Equality Act, legislation which recognizes sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes in federal law; the U.S. bishops’ conference has opposed the legislation, saying it would codify transgender ideology in law and would “punish” religious groups that object to the LGBT agenda.

Biden’s administration is also seeking to reinstate the “transgender mandate,” policy which would force doctors and insurance companies to perform or cover gender-transitioning procedures upon the referral from a mental health professional.

The Sisters of Charity in Cincinnati are members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).

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Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, speaks at Philadelphia’s Eucharistic Congress on Sept. 30, 2023.  / Credit: Sarah Webb/Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 3, 2023 / 17:15 pm (CNA).
Bishop Mi… […]