The Biden administration is being sued by a religiously affiliated children’s home over child placements with LGBTQ+ families.
Back in May, Joe Biden reinstated an array of protections that were stripped away from the queer community during Donald Trump’s presidency.
One of those protections included the Department of Health and Human Services banning any form of discrimination based on religion, gender identity, marital status and sexual orientation.
Due to the reinstated LGBTQ+ protections, the Holston United Methodist Home for Children filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration in an effort to not re-home children to queer families.
According to a report from Newsweek, the Tennessee-based children’s home submitted the suit on Thursday 2 December.
In the filing, the organisation argued that the discrimination protections prevented the home from practising its “religious freedom.”
“It would substantially burden Holston Home’s exercise of its religious beliefs to knowingly engage in child-placing activities in connection with couples who may be romantically cohabitating but not married, or who are couples of the same biological sex,” the document said.
The conservative children’s home has also brought in the anti-LGBTQ+ group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) to represent them in the case.
In a statement to Newsweek, Matt Bowman of the ADF said the Biden administration’s alleged exclusion of faith-based agencies “harms kids” and the act of religious freedoms.
The lawsuit also named the Department of Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra, who had previously condemned the use of religious exemptions to discriminate against the queer community.
Last month, Becerra announced the suspension of the religious waivers and said they were inconsistent with the departments “critical goal”.
“HHS reaffirms its important commitment to core American values: HHS will not condone the blanket use of religious exemptions against any person or blank checks to allow discrimination against any persons, importantly including LGBT+ persons in taxpayer-funded programs,” he said in a statement.
“The waivers are inconsistent with the department’s critical goal of combating discrimination based on religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”
The impending lawsuit follows the controversial ruling of Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which was a case revolving around LGBTQ+ discrimination and religious exemption.
Before the high profile case, the city had a longstanding partnership with CSS but once it was revealed that they wouldn’t re-home children to same-sex couples the contract was terminated.
The ruling was also cited in United Methodist Home for Children lawsuit against the Biden administration.
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