Biden's newly proposed rule for the foster care sy

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WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Biden administration has proposed a new rule that would effectively ban those of Christian faith from participating the child foster care system.

According to a report from the American Family Association (AFA), the new rule, coined by the administration as "Safe and Appropriate Foster Care Placement Requirements," will require foster parents to "utilize the child's identified pronouns, chosen name, and allow the child to dress in an age-appropriate manner that the child believes reflects their self-identified gender identity and expression."

In response to the proposed rule, attorneys general from nearly 19 states have written a letter urging the Biden administration to reverse course, stating that the new rule would effectively disqualify Christian families from serving as foster parents, putting an additional strain on an already over-burdened foster care system.

Fox News reported that Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, along with 18 other GOP colleagues, sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expressing their concern over the newly proposed rule. The letter states that the altered requirements for foster care families violates the Constitution and actively discriminates against people who practice the Christian faith.

The attorneys general wrote that the newly proposed rule "will harm children by limiting the number of available foster homes, harm families by risking kinship placements, and harm states by increasing costs and decreasing care options" They wrote, "These injuries will be suffered while HHS fails to solve a problem that the proposed rule does not even prove exists in foster care."

According to the letter, the newly proposed rule "seeks to accomplish indirectly what the Supreme Court found unconstitutional just two years ago: remove faith-based providers from the foster care system if they will not conform their religious beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity."

In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that Philadelphia's refusal to contract with a Catholic social services group unless it agreed to certify same-sex couples as foster parents violated the First Amendment. As of 2022, there were approximately 391,000 children in foster care nationwide.

The letter states, "The foster care system depends on individuals and organizations of faith." For example, in Arkansas one faith-based group was credited with recruiting almost half of the foster homes in the state, and in New Mexico, every private placement agency is Christian faith based.

The attorneys general wrote, "States need faith-based organizations in their foster care system. The proposed rule will drive individuals and organizations of faith away, which will increase the strain on the system by reducing the number of available foster homes." The letter notes that HHS anticipates the number of children in the foster care system to increase to nearly 416,500 by 2027.

The letter cited that according to a 2022 study, foster parents who are recruited through a church or other religious organization foster children for 2.6 years longer than the average foster parent, and that practicing Christians are three times more likely to seriously consider fostering than the general population.

They wrote in their letter, "The federal government should be searching for ways to increase the number of foster homes, not decrease them." In a statement to Fox News Digital, Marshall said, "Joe Biden continues to harass our State and others like it by implicitly threatening to withhold federal funding for children in need if we do not conform to his ideology, but our values are not for sale."

He added, "Since the first century, Christians across the globe have answered the call to provide a home and a family to children who had neither. Alabama boasts a particularly strong faith-based foster care and adoption community, and I will fight this administration for them every step of the way."

If Biden's proposed rule goes into effect, thousands of Christian couples wishing to serve as foster parents will become ineligible because of their religious faith.

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