While we have made some significant strides towards equality for the LGBTQ community, we are seeing more and more setbacks within the last year or so and 2018 is already off to a rocky start in Georgia.
The Senate just passed the "Keep Faith in Adoption and Foster Care Act," a bill which allows taxpayer-funded adoption and foster care agencies to refuse to work with same-sex couples based on religious beliefs. To be clear, the bill allows agencies to refuse to place children with same-sex couples because they are gay, even though they are otherwise qualified.
Proponents of this bill claim that its goal is to simply extend the religious liberties of adoption and foster care agencies. Senator William Ligon, who introduced the bill, claims, "This bill does not prevent anyone from adopting" and agencies "want to have the assurance that they'll be able to exercise their fundamental right to practice their faith."
However, this bill does nothing to "protect" God-fearing Christians. In reality, it legalizes discrimination and infringes upon the rights of others, namely same-sex couples. Aside from the fact that it is absolutely absurd to deny children a loving home because the couple wishing to adopt is gay, but –– actually, no, that’s it. That is a good enough explanation.
At this point in time, taking rights away from a specific demographic of people is a bright red flag for our democracy.