The Trump administration on Wednesday
issued a waiver to a South Carolina ministry allowing it to deny
child placement services to gay or non-Christian couples.
Greenville's Miracle Hill Ministries
received the waiver from the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS).
Regulations put in place by President
Barack Obama prohibit federally funded foster care agencies from
excluding couples based on a number of factors, including religion.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster,
a Republican, asked for the waiver. Miracle Hill Ministries is
responsible for up to 15 percent of such placements in the state,
according to McMaster's office.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the
nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, called the waiver
“unconscionable.”
“Every decision that is made by a
provider of child welfare services must be grounded in doing what is in
the best interest of the child, period. Providing care for these
kids is critically important, and too many kids languish in the
foster care system because there aren’t enough foster and adoptive
parents for each child. Allowing a federal contractor the ability to
refuse to work with qualified prospective parents - limiting the pool
of prospective parents even further - is directly counter to the best
interests of the children waiting for families,” Cathryn Oakley,
state legislative director at HRC, said in a statement. “The
federal government has a compelling interest in ensuring federal
contractors are providing quality care, and in ensuring that
taxpayers aren’t footing the bill for taxpayer-funded
discrimination. This waiver is unconscionable, in no small part
because it prioritizes federal contractors over kids in need of
families.”