Thanks, you said it with clarity. We must be able to put away our bias in the spirit of trust and reciprication.

This charity has broken that trust by refusing to relinquish a religious bias for the benefit of the many thousands of poeple they would have served had they accepted and enacted their mission in conjunction with the government (the poeple), in GOOD FAITH.

They did not act in good faith and in the end they turned their back on all these kids and have set a precident for all other charities like them to do the same as marriage/civil union laws change through out this country.

You can change it's stripe but the smell of a skunk will never pass as perfume.

Well you know that I know that most religion is not good for people anyway but and this is a big one....

I believe that if we are going to allow churches to do non profit work then we have to accept that they will have certain things they are not willing to do. Just as a Catholic hospital will not perform abortions or any service associated with it. So if you want that coverage, which is rare even without the religious association, you will have to go to a different hospital and/or have different insurance.

I believe it is better for the children to not be exposed to the hypocritical, confusing, archaic even sometimes frightening and definitely fear and hate mongering religion anyway. So it was a favor to the kids at that level.

Good response with good questions. The Catholic charity was a non-profit which is one set of regulations that dealt with how they received and claimed their funding.

However, to be in the busnines of adoption and foster care REQUIRES that they follow STATE regulation which includes a process by which homes are reviewed in order to be approved for child placement.

None of those rules inihibitied the charity from employing whom the wanted, nor did rules explicitly prevent a child from being place within a household of some other religion. But as far as I know, they are not beholding to anyone to give out their adoption records except possibly the children when they get old enough.

Yes Dragoness, you make a good point, but in this case it was the law that changed which caused the problem. By the law changing in the State of Illinois, SS couples joined by civil union have all the same benefits from their union (at state level) as married couples.

That means they have the option and the right to be considered as adoptive or foster parents. It's part of the IL (constitution) and so it is now part of the laws overseeing adoption & foster care.

A further complication is that several states are or have changed their state adoption and foster care regulations to include single qualifie parents - which would HAVE to include gays and lesbians. To my understanding this has caused other adoption charieties (Catholic) to take the same action as the Rockford Catholic Charity.

To them it's better to be true to their dogma for their OWN sakes (future imortality) than to worry about the well-being of a child in the now. SAD SAD

I dont think they were 'wronged' or 'wrong'

a single parent with no job might provide a LOVING home for a child, but it might not provide the BEST environment...

its a very subjective call when there are so many options, which options are going to provide LOVE and a STABLE , healthy, environment for the child

if this charity didnt feel that they would be able to send children where they considered were the best homes, they did the right thing getting out

if the children they were placing were indeed being sent to good homes, than they served the children as they should and the children werent harmed

,,,its the best ending possible under the circumstances,,,

So, you are saying the Catholic charity should remain open and violate their beliefs because the state mandates it for the sake of the children?

Let's put it this way, every time you need to go to an emergency room, every time you need a dentist, or want to buy a home, or find a doctor for your sick child, do you want to be worried that the religious affiliation of the hospital, medical center, doctors, staff, salepeople, etc, are going to discriminate against you, not serve you, or perhaps not serve you to the best of their ability or with the best products or offer the wisest options or with the same respect they would offer their own?

I certainly do not want to place my health, my needs, my money, my "faith" in the bias that is the dogma which the religious cannot seem to put aside for the sake of brotherhood, and human ethics.

A religion is the belief of a single individual - congregations of like minds set on promoting segregation, bias, and discrimination are not religious, I will leave it to others to name the categories under which those people would fall.

Congregations of like minds set on promoting change for the sake of equality, to endeavor to reach the height of global human ethics are not religious either, I will leave it to others who are more adept at segregating to use their dogma for that purpose in this case.

as stated before not all situations are equal

I dont know the whole story here though, did they ONLY service catholic families? Did they NEVER place one child with a non catholic family?

IT seems, in cases like this, there is a choice to be made. I would compare it to a judge who has to sit before TWO parents and decide the BEST environment for the child. There may be no argument BOTH parents would love the child, but certainly that is not the only thing the COURTS consider when deciding the best ENVIRONMENT. Nor do adoption agencies.

IF, as argued before, the concern should be for the child. If the services are there for the BEST options of the child, than the CANDIDATES preferences become SECONDARY and those who would be deemed the best loving family with the most stable and HEALTHY environment for the child will probably be selected over the less healthy or stable homes almost every time.

The two parent home, will probably be chosen over the single parent home, the higher income home over the poverty line income home,,,etc,,

even if we give the benefit of the doubt that in ALL these homes, the candidates would have provided LOVE,, children do in reality need more than love,,,

What difference would that make? I mean how would change things or what light would it shed on their current action?




Obviously there was choice to be made and for the charity the choice was not founded on logical concerns which will be discussed below.



The Catholic nonprofit sites two changes in the law that they cannot follow when placing children.

1. Single adult males or females who meet the criteria for providing some minimum ideal of a necessary environment will be qualified and allowed to be foster parents and adoptees

2.A same-sex household in which the spouses/partners have been joined by civil union and who meet the criteria for providing some minimum ideal of a necessary environment will be qualified and allowed to be foster parents and adoptees

Sighting religious beliefs, the nonprofit ultimately felt that they could not place children in either of those two conditions. Fine – but are they now saying that they cared no more or less or provided no more or less to the outcomes of all these kids than what the state could or can provide?

If that’s the case, I don’t understand why they were in business using taxpayer dollars in the first place? Why was a non-secular charity given some share of funds which took away from the funds the state could have had for doing the exact same job with exactly the same outcomes?

In effect, the harm the nonprofit may have caused was to overburden the state before it was prepared to accept the 300 or so new children which actually put ALL the kids who are now and newly coming into the state system at higher risk for bad outcomes.

Aside from all that, the nonprofit and the leaders that backed the nonprofit (church officials) have stated that their rights to practice the religion of their choice has been infringed upon.

Now the nonprofit has always been required to meet the civil standards, and follow the civil law of every other state foster care or adoption agency. We need to make that point perfectly clear. THEY followed the civil law. The law was not made to accommodate their religious belief, which tends to be one of the silly little things many people of faith will intone as they continue to maintain that this country was founded on Christian principles. NO IT WAS NOT.

Then the law changed and it no longer accommodated the civil acceptance of discrimination that the nonprofit believes is part of their religious freedom. This caused the leaders of that NP to make their ridiculous inference that their freedom has been infringed upon – without EVER considering the children or the adults they were discriminating against.

You see how the propagation of misinformation can cause ineffectual thought processes? When people think this country was founded on Christian principles they also believe their religious freedoms take priority over the freedoms of others. Obviously they continue to suggest that ending discrimination will seriously affect Christian values because ending discrimination means changing the laws which many Christians have come to believe where created for the benefit of their religious freedom.

I suppose it’s best to be this direct all the time however, I do attempt to make people think for themselves but sometimes the Christian logic based on dogma and misinformation short circuits the thinking system.

I’ve said it often and I will repeat it; I think there will always be religious but people have to find a way to keep those beliefs in their OWN manner as a PERSONAL set of values and stop attempting to insert their individual values on others. We will be a more tolerant and accepting civilization if/when all people take responsibility for the content and context of human ethics and avoid mixing their personal religious beliefs with those ethics that guide civil law.

Bravo
Redykeulous!!

Very well said. Great post!!

it wasnt a WASTE of money IF children were indeed placed in loving homes(Regardless of they dynamic of the relationship in that home)

it was an ADDITIONAL resource to the state, not necessarily a DIFFERENT resource or a BETTER resource

we cant with any intellectual honesty, seperate RELIGIOUS belief form any other when it comes to the majority and their opinions , standards, values,,whatever


we are a nation of INDIVIDUALS who (thankfully)get to vote on the laws, guidelines, policies, and statutes we wish to be the foundation for our culture, our society, our country. We cannot seperate INDIVIDUAL beliefs from those decisions, because all our beliefs are INDIVIDUAL To us based upon our experiences in life(Regardless if they were inside a church, on a farm, or in a high rise).

our experiences make us who we are and its discriminatory to insist or expect the 'religious' to somehow escape that reality or ignore their own 'experiences' when forming their opinions, standards and values.

I don't think anyone is saying that they have to ignore their own experiences or anything of the sort. We are simply saying, don't push your beliefs onto others, or use it as a means to discriminate against others who don't think like you do. You can have your beliefs, and live by them all you want to. But when you start to expect others to live by the same, you are crossing a line as is the case here.

IN a democracy, where people VOTE, their beliefs and opinions matter regardless of where they are assumed to come from.

Which is again why democracy fails. Because through it, one can discriminate against another by a majority.

it doesnt fail , in my eyes
to each their own

and we can all find communities that operate the way we wish, democracy isnt the only culture in the world

now finding someplace with no GOVERNMENT

gov·ern (gvrn)
v. gov·erned, gov·ern·ing, gov·erns
v.tr.
1. To make and administer the public policy and affairs of; exercise sovereign authority in.
2. To control the speed or magnitude of; regulate: a valve that governs fuel intake.
3. To control the actions or behavior of: Govern yourselves like civilized people.
4. To keep under control; restrain: a student who could not govern his impulses.
5. To exercise a deciding or determining influence on: Chance usually governs the outcome of the game.
6. Grammar To require (a specific morphological form) of accompanying words



,,THAT MIGHT serve a little more difficult,,but good luck


government REQUIRES assignment of authority and/or control over others
it might be by control by a minority or by a majority, but it requires control

I wouldnt want to live someplace where there was NO effort to maintain some 'agreed upon' controls,,,

It can be, and in this case it is.

So what do you propose? We live in a dictatorship where we all live as you decide we should?

your also talking about fanatics... in their mind, they are doing whats best for themselves, not going to hell...or sending the child to hell...

So you are saying Christians have no right to live by their beliefs if it conflicts with the government. Are you advocating that the government controls what religions are allowed to say?

this isn't a true democracy... the majority doesn't always win... the people with money wins, most of the time... in texas, 79% of the people want gambling legalized, but the southern baptist lobbys and it will never get to a vote because of the stupid lobbying...