Virginia Regulatory Town Hall
Agency
Department of Social Services
 
Board
State Board of Social Services
 
chapter
Minimum Standards for Licensed Private Child-Placing Agencies [22 VAC 40 ‑ 131]
Action Adopt new standards for licensed private child-placing agencies.
Stage Proposed
Comment Period Ended on 4/1/2011
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4/1/11  6:13 pm
Commenter: Dawn Rolando - adoptive parent

Opposition to the new wording additions to adoption codes
 

Don't hurt needy children by driving religious foster care and adoption agencies out of business.   If an agency provides good parents for children, they should be embraced, not rejected by the state of Virginia.   All agencies do not need to meet the needs of all potential applicants.  The "right to choice" is a foundation that most proponents of this new wording would embrace.  I ask you  to respect the convictions and needs that faith based agencies fill for those who '"choose" to exercies their religious convictions and liberties by working with an agency that has similar moral convictions.

The message of exclusion you will send to potential foster and adoptive parents, and children in need of homes, with strongly held faith based moral convictions is unconscionable and destructive.  Our country has a foundation of Religious Freedom - not freedom from religion.  Our Constitution and Declaration of Independance protect these freedoms.

The state of Virginia Social Services has no right to impose this strange new morality on other people, to the detriment of the neediest children in the state.  I respectfully request you to uphold our Constitutional right to religious liberties.  Do not unduely burden faith-based agencies by requiring them to disreguard their moral convictions or loose their licences.

CommentID: 16926