I saw a video recently of Newt Gingrich claiming that gay rights gains in some states had “forced” Catholic Charities to end its adoption services because the government was insisting they allow equal access to gay prospective adoptive parents.
Newt claimed this was a violation of the First Amendment (which says the government may neither establish nor impede religion, for those of you outside the U.S.).
In fact, Catholic Charities (and/or the government) were already in violation of the First Amendment, because Catholic Charities was receiving government funding. Their choice was to refuse further funding or to open their doors to everyone, regardless of sexuality.
They took the third route and quit doing adoptions and foster services.
I wrote about this for BlogHer a while back, when last summer, Illinois (my state) began offering marriage-like “civil unions” to same-sex couples and a local branch of Catholic Charities shuttered its adoption and fostering services.
See that post here.
