Adoption, Discrimination and Conscience

As the Virginia State government moved vigorously to the right following the mid-term elections, it is perhaps no surprise that it has chosen to move aggressively.  For years, it was constrained by the counterbalancing force of a moderate Democrat in the State House, or a moderate majority in the Senate.

This is no longer the case.  Absent that counterweight, things in Richmond have gone precisely the way you'd expect.  Folks on the right are releasing all that pent-up paleoconservative tension, as drunk with freedom as the child of helicopter parents in those first few blurry weeks of college.   And Lord have mercy, have they gone on a legislative bender.

They're pitching out new laws right and left.  Or right and further right, to be more accurate.

They would permit multiple simultaneous handgun purchases, much to the great delight of our friends in the Zetas drug cartel.   They would mandate medically unnecessary ultrasounds for any woman considering an abortion, because health care mandates are what American Conservatism is all about.

And now, there's a bill...likely to pass...that would explicitly allow private faith-based adoption services agencies to refuse to work with couples who don't meet the standards of their faith tradition.  This would include agencies who receive funding from the state.

This is being described as a bill that would protect the consciences of faith-based providers, and is generally understood as being a Trojan Horse for keeping children away from gay couples.  If you believe that homosexuality is inherently sinful, or so the not-really-spoken argument goes, then you shouldn't be required to place children with same-sex couples.  That is, rationalizations about preserving freedom notwithstanding, the sole, entire, and only purpose of this bill.

Understand that this has nothing to do with protecting the child from abuse or neglect.  Under federal law, adoption agencies are required to do significant background checks on parents and individuals who seek to adoption a child.  The effect of this bill is to permit discrimination against individuals whose beliefs do not mesh with the agency.  Federal law forbids racial discrimination in adoption, but is silent on the subject of religious discrimination.

Having known gay couples who have adopted kids, and who are wonderful parents, this bill bothers the bejabbers out of me on that level.  It is woefully wrong on that front.  But my issues with it go deeper.

Sure, it's meant to be anti-gay, but in being coy about it and couching itself in what it imagines is the language of freedom, it's more than that.  Reading the text of the bill as written, it is also potentially anti-Muslim.  Or antisemitic.  Or anti-mainline Protestant.  Or anti-atheist.  Or anti-Christian.  

Let's imagine for a moment that the state-licensed and funded agency in question is run by a literalist Christian group.  As far as they are concerned, failure to believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God is a sure path to Aitch-EE-Double-Toothpicks.  

Now imagine for a moment that a Bible-believing woman is married to a Christian-ish man who's not quite so sure about what he believes, and they find a child through this group.  The state-funded agency in question would now be perfectly within its legal rights to stop the adoption process mid-cycle if they feel that such a family might not raise a child in keeping with its values.  "It's your husband.  We just can't risk little Tyler going to hell, Ma'am."  

Again, it's not that they'd be bad parents.  Just that they'd be the wrong sort of people.  What of a conservative Catholic agency that receives state funds and licensing?  Could such a group refuse a child to a nondenominational couple on the basic of their beliefs?  Under this law, the answer is yes.  

Given that conscience, at its heart, means "knowing together," the internalization of a shared ethos, does such a bill really represent conscience across the entirety of the state?  Does it represent our shared statewide understanding of what is in the best interest of children?  Does it even represent what the Apostle Paul would have described as "doing what is right in the eyes of all?" 

No.  The answer to those rhetorical questions is of course not.   But that's the way Richmond rolls these days.

New Things

As I sit in the pastor's office on a Saturday morning, things are typically silent in the church. The halls are empty. The classrooms sit cold and dormant. The sanctuary is still. The thrums and wheezes of our heating system and the staccato clacking of my Mac's chicklet keyboard are the usually the only sounds. It can feel like a hollow, empty shell of a building, a brittle egg with no yolk and no white.

Today, though, the church bustles and hums with life. One of the folks who is joining the church tomorrow had the vision and desire to restart a culture school for adoptive parents of Korean kids. Our church had hosted a similar program years ago, but it waned when the agency we worked with changed hands and lost interest. But one eager and entrepreneurial soul was enough to get it rolling again. The church gives her the space and our encouragement and our prayers, and suddenly, there's sound and laughter and footsteps here again. I had the pleasure of offering up words of welcome to the group on behalf of the church this morning, and it was a delightful thing.

For a small church, there are three things to carefully avoid when you start up a new thing.

First, we need to avoid viewing new things as a distraction or a threat to "how things are." Many fading churches are desperate to revitalize, but only understand revitalization as "doing what we've always done but with more people." That is the path of decay and death. Life means dynamism and change and openness to the new. Vibrant and successful churches both nurture and celebrate newness. They encourage the gifts and hopes and aspirations of every soul who gathers with them. I think we've got this one down. Folks here are willing to embrace change, and my little leadership cadre has made that an explicit part of our congregational vision.

Second, we need to avoid being physically territorial. Whenever there is change in the life of a church, sometimes folks bump up against other folks. We try to coordinate times and spaces, but sometimes..well..things get moved. Or a room isn't quite exactly the way you left it. Or someone chasing down a child forgets they left a half-consumed cup of coffee on your desk. Given our not-so-distant remove from other higher primates, it's easy for human beings to get all pissy about picayune stuff like this. I know I can be that way sometimes. But that petty material gracelessness can be a surprisingly impressive impediment to renewal. For little groups who are used to everything being theirs, the whispering and puckered-lip disapproval over their use of our space and place can hamstring efforts to welcome in new opportunities for joy. I think we do OK at this about two-thirds of the time. I commit to doing it better, and to lovingly kicking the butts of folks I see falling into this trap.

Third, and this one is the hardest, we need not to be grasping. As any new program comes into being, particularly ones that serve others, it's really really hard for churches not to seize hold of them like a panicked drowning person. Every person who comes SIMPLY MUST JOIN US! We need you here! Pleasepleasepleaseplease! In our desperation to be moving in the right direction, we view every new opportunity as something that should serve us.

This gets it exactly backwards. Every new opportunity is an opportunity for us to better serve others. I know we don't have much time, and things are tough. But we need not to grasp and cling and cry out and have our future drown with us as we claw it under with us. Be calm. Don't panic. Celebrate the moments as they come, and keep ourselves open to the moments of new possibility that will arrive.