Photo via councilofchurches-scc.org

Illinois ends contracts with Catholic adoption agencies

Illinois’ remaining Catholic adoption agencies are seeking an emergency court injunction after the state ended their contracts last week over their refusal to participate in same-sex adoptions, reports LifeSiteNews.com. The state’s move would end a thirty-year-old partnership and affect 2,500 foster children.

“They made a choice,” Gov. Pat Quinn, a Catholic himself, told reporters in a July 11th press conference. “They have a law in Illinois. It’s the civil unions law. I signed it into law. We’re not going back. Any organization that decides that because of the civil unions law that they won’t participate voluntarily in a program, that’s their choice.”

The Thomas More Society, acting on behalf of Catholic Charities in the dioceses of Peoria, Joliet, and Springfield, will ask a Sangamon County judge for an injunction Tuesday.

The agencies had sued the state last month asking the court to declare that their policy of not recruiting unmarried couples for foster care was within the law.

But Erwin McEwen, director of Illinois’ Department of Children and Family Services, informed the agencies on July 8th that the state would not accept their contracts for fiscal year 2012 because they had “made it clear” that they would not comply with the new Act.

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TAGS: Illinois Catholic adoption contract Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act

[07/13/2011]

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