Foster Care and Adoption Laws

 
Adoption Map
 
 
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Some states have adopted protections for religiously-affiliated adoption agencies, which allow the agencies to place children only with families that conform to the agency’s faith or belief about marriage, even if the agency accepts funding from the government to run its programs. Standalone here means these protections were not adopted in conjunction with other legislation.

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Some states, at the time of legislatively adopting same-sex marriage, adopted laws for religiously-affiliated adoption agencies which preserved the preexisting ability of the agencies to place children only with families that conform to the agency’s faith or belief about marriage, even if the agency accepts funding from the government to run its programs.

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Some states have adopted laws that protect against sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in the foster care and adoption context.

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Both SOGI Nondiscrimination and Preservation of Status Quo for Agencies. See individual categories above.

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These states take the position that if you accept public money, then you have to follow public rules. Thus, an adoption agency using its own private funds may place children only with families that conform to the agency’s faith or belief about marriage, but may not make that choice if using public funds.