Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

May 2017 – Pro-family groups are applauding passage of South Dakota's Senate Bill 149, a new law that will allow faith-based adoption agencies to operate according to their moral principles. Governor Dennis Daugaard (R) (photo above) signed the bill into law earlier this year.

According to a post by U.K. Christian Institute, the state’s Family Policy Council said Senate Bill 149 ensures that adoption agencies will not be forced “to abandon their sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions in their placement decisions.” Family Research Council said the bill means children can no longer be used as pawns in a push to “legalize same sex parents.”

However, the Human Rights Campaign, the ACLU, and other leftists cried foul, claiming that if the agencies are allowed to apply their moral principles, it will automatically mean discrimination against the LGBTQ community. An HRC online headline called SB 149 a “license to discriminate.”

christian.org.uk, 3/15/17; hrc.org, 3/2/17