As I understand it, the Arlington Diocese chapter of Catholic Charities, which does abortion counseling and placement advisement, could be severely impacted by this standard.  Many women who are abortion-minded say the reason for their consideration of abortion is that they are not ready or able to be parents at this time in their lives.  It's essential for Catholic Charities to be able to present the life-affirming choice of adoption to such women.  If a woman considering the abortion path choses to carry her pregnancy to term, Catholic Charities needs to be able to walk the right path with her throughout her pregnancy to provide counseling, support, and encouragement, and to provide her with choices in adoptive families that mirror Catholic values.  The proposed standard could force faith-based agencies to close their adoption programs, thereby limiting adoption services in Virginia to secular agenies who include abortion along with adoption in their "options counseling" for pregnant women.  And should it be an act of "discrimination", with legal penalties, for Catholic Charities to rightly counsel a young woman that ther baby would be better off with a conventional set of parents (man and woman married to each other), rather than a homosexual couple or any of the other goofy conceivable arrangements under the proposed standard?

Please do what you can to see that this proposed standard is not adopted.