U.S. Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) is fighting for the rights of prospective adoptive parents who are committed to raising their children based on the biological sex they were given at birth.
The lawmaker has unveiled his bill, called the Sensible Adoption for Every (SAFE) Home Act, which would impose steep consequences on federally-funded child welfare agencies and organizations that would deny would-be parents who ignore the minors’ stated LGBTQ identities and desires for medical and/or surgical intervention.
“The Biden administration is cruelly preventing countless children in the foster care and adoption system from going to loving homes just because parents are opposed to irreversible sex change procedures on kids,” Banks told Fox News Digital.
“This isn’t a liberal or conservative issue,” he said. “This is just plain wrong, and every sane person knows it.”
Banks’ legislation follows a new rule proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “which would require that child welfare agencies ensure that each child in their care who identifies as LGBTQI+ receive a safe and appropriate placement and services that help them thrive.”
“The proposed rule would protect LGBTQI+ youth by placing them in environments free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse based on the child’s LGBTQI+ status,” HHS said. “And the proposed rule would require that caregivers for LGBTQI+ children are properly and fully trained to provide for the needs of the child related to the child’s self-identified sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.”
Banks’ legislation would cut federal funding to those agencies and organizations that follow HHS’s demands and reject protective parents who don’t buy into the woke ideology.
As BizPac Review reported, nineteen Republican attorneys general fired off a letter late last month to HHS, arguing that one of its proposed rule changes discriminates against Christians and would ultimately harm needy children by limiting the number of foster homes that are operating in an already overwhelmed system.
The rule, Safe and Appropriate Foster Care Placement Requirements, “would mandate that foster parents and families utilize a foster child’s ‘identified pronouns, chosen name, and allow the child to dress in an age-appropriate manner that the child believes reflects their self-identified gender identity and expression,'” Fox News explained. It “seeks to accomplish indirectly what the Supreme Court found unconstitutional just two years ago: remove faith-based providers from the foster care system if they will not conform their religious beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity.”
GOP AGs slam Biden admin for new rule they say would exclude Christians from fostering kids https://t.co/JIGm8Mktme via @BIZPACReview — BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) November 28, 2023
“These injuries will be suffered while HHS fails to solve a problem that the proposed rule does not even prove exists in foster care,” the AGs wrote.
“The foster care system depends on individuals and organizations of faith,” they said. “States need faith-based organizations in their foster care system. The proposed rule will drive individuals and organizations of faith away, which will increase the strain on the system by reducing the number of available foster homes.”
“The federal government should be searching for ways to increase the number of foster homes,” the AGs argued, “not decrease them.”