Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) and other Republican senators are warning that a proposed rule by President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could undermine religious liberty and force foster parents to affirm gender ideology.
Along with Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mo.), and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Marshall sent a letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra on Thursday, which highlighted multiple concerns over the placement rule.
The GOP senators warned the rule would mandate that LGBT minors be placed with foster care providers who agree to affirm the LGBT child’s pronouns and gender identity, as well as provide the child with “services that are necessary to support their health and wellbeing.”
The senators wrote, “If enacted, this proposal would place further strain on the child welfare system and undermine the ability of states to provide safe, stable, and loving homes to our most vulnerable children.”
Marshall told The Daily Wire that the “top priority” of foster care programs should be to provide “vulnerable children with a safe and loving home.”
“Unfortunately, under the Biden Administration, moral and religious values are under attack by the far Left’s endless pursuit to further their LGBTQ+ agenda,” Marshall said. “We are fighting back against the Biden Administration’s woke gender ideology and pronoun politics. Their new proposed rule aims to exclude faith-based foster care providers from helping children in need — not on my watch.”
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Urging the Biden administration to rescind the proposed rule, the Republican senators claimed the new rule would accuse foster parents who did not affirm gender ideology of “child abuse” and would require states to “adopt extreme gender ideology.”
“The premise of this proposal is that any foster care provider who does not ‘affirm’ a child’s sexual orientation or gender that differs from his or her biological sex is perpetuating and committing child abuse and will be shunned for failing to support the foster child’s ‘health and wellbeing,'” the senators wrote.
The Republican senators also warned that the placement rule could prevent faith-based organizations from working in the foster care system if they do not affirm the LGBT agenda.
The letter explained, “The Department’s proposal would put religious families and religious providers in the position of declaring themselves unfit placements for a subset of the foster care pool, in spite of their long track records of excellence in serving and loving all children who need help.”
