Religion & Law

With the adoption of civil union legislation in Illinois, religious organizations (including Catholic Charities) that operate foster care agencies may lose state funding if they refuse to place children with same-sex couples:

If they are found in violation, Lutheran Child and Family Services, Catholic Charities in five regions and the Evangelical Child and Family Agency will have to license openly gay foster parents or lose millions of state dollars, potentially disrupting more than 3,000 foster children in their care.

Though Illinois legislators championing the civil union bill earlier this year insisted that religious institutions would not be forced to bless same-sex unions, it said nothing about same-sex parents.