NJ religion-in-adoption bill heads for vote in legislature
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Gary Schaer said religious and cultural backgrounds are significant in determining the best interests of a child.
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May 23, 2012
NJ legislators are closer to passing a law that would require agencies to maintain a child’s religious upbringing when placing the child in an adoptive or foster home.
The bill, authored by Assembly member Gary Schaer (D-Dist. 36) of Passaic, was approved by the Assembly Women and Children Committee on May 14. It awaits passage by the full Assembly and State Senate.
“A child’s religious and cultural backgrounds are significant aspects of determining the best interests of the child,” said Schaer, an Orthodox Jew, in a May 15 press release. “That’s why it’s so important that the placement of a child into foster care or adoption should be consistent with their religious and cultural backgrounds, unless it’s proven by convincing evidence that such placement is not in the best interests of the child.”
Groups that oppose the bill, including Foster and Adoptive Family Services, worry that its passage will restrict the pool of potential families for any particular child.
According to its sponsors, the legislation would permit agencies and courts to place a child in a setting of a different religion “only with a written statement from the child’s birth parent or legal guardian.”
“For many children, religion is a guiding force in their life and a strong part of their inherent identity,” said Pamela Lampitt (D-Dist. 6), a cosponsor of the legislation.
Assembly Member Upendra Chivukula (D-Dist. 17), the bill’s third sponsor, agrees. “Reasonable effort should be made to ensure the continuity of the child’s religious upbringing,” he said in the press release. “It’s the right thing to do.”
The measure is being sponsored in the Legislature’s upper house by State Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Dist. 25). No date has been set for a vote in either chamber.
Comments
Thomas O'Neil
May 24, 2012
Why increase barriers to place these needy children? The bureaucracy involved with helping these kids is horrendous. My wife and I took a four week course, payed for by our taxes as well as our fellow citizens, and have not been given the courtesy of a phone call. We have a home in Cherry Hill with three empty bedrooms and we are both accomplished adults. If you were to pass another law it would take all the agencies involved with Foster Care another three years to understand it and another three to implement it.
Patricia Quigley
May 25, 2012
I agree with Thomas O’Neil completely. It’s amazing that this bill was even allowed to come up for a vote.
Ina Kichen
May 25, 2012
As the adoptive mother of three wonderful children, I can attest that there is already enough red tape in the adoption process. This incredibly misguided legislation will have a negative impact on the ability of social service organizations to help children who need families get adopted by loving parents. It will erect yet one more barrier to the process.
This bill is so wrong on so many levels. There are already too many children needing families and not enough families looking to adopt. To say nothing of yet one infringement of the principle of church/state separation.
With all the problems facing children and families these days (loss of employment, foreclosure of homes, lack of health insurance, etc.), I am appalled that our elected officials thought it was incumbent upon them to set up this adoption roadblock.
What were they thinking?
Lisa DeMarco
May 25, 2012
I agree with all the above comments. I am the mother of three wonderful boys, two of which were adopted from the foster care system. My two youngest boys did happen to be the same religion as our family…but their cultural background is not the same as ours. I could not ask for more spectacular children! We have given them a loving home where they are adored and nutured. They will be aware of their biological culture and they will learn about their heritage….but they will know and live a life where they understand that the most important thing is not where you are from…but more who you are now and what you are able to become! By placing a limit on potentail adoptive parents like this new law, you are limiting the amount of available families. These are children….and we need to put their best interest ahead of everything else. Families should be matched by what they can provide for these youth….not by their race, background or religion. I think that everyone in legislature needs to put all their heads together and work on the important issues for the children and stop with the insignificant laws that are meaningless. They need to work on recruiting more families, so that we can place all the children in foster care in loving homes and let their lives truely begin.
Regina DiPietro
May 25, 2012
With a so many children in need of homes and families to love them how does Assembly Member Gary Schaer think this bill is a good idea? If children can only be placed with families of the same race and/or religious background there would not be enough families to foster and adopt them. Would Gary Schaer prefer the children be placed in orphanages because of the difficulties that finding a match based on religion or skin color would cause. We are Americans. This is a country of many different colors and ethnic backgrounds. These children are American children. They deserve to be with families who love and cherish them. Families of mixed race’s and religions are our future. Maybe in Mr. Schaer religious background it is frowned upon to go outside of your own culture. That is fine, for him. But he should not force his ways on others. Religion should never come into play in matters such as these. As a grandmother of three spectacular little boys (one Caucasian and two African American) I would dare anyone to say to me that our family is anything less then perfect just the way it is!
Regina DiPietro
May 25, 2012
I feel I have to add to the comments that I just left . I would like to mention the type of family I was raised in. My Hungarian Jewish grandmother married my Irish Catholic grandfather. My father, who was raised Jewish married my Catholic Italian American mother. As I was growing up my grandmother always lived with us. I always said I was was the luckiest person to have an Italian mother and a Jewish grandmother. My brothers and I were raised Catholic but we were brought up with a strong background of our Jewish culture. With a family of mixed backgrounds, such as mine, we have love and respect for all people and their religions. I now have three children. My oldest has three son’s. The youngest two were adopted. They are African American children. They are our children and we adore them! It would be very sad to have a Bill such as the one Mr Schaer wants, passed. Our family has embraced our mixed religion’s and race’s. We are happy and our children are loved. That is all anyone could ever want out of life.
Gerry Siegel
May 26, 2012
Dumbest bill I have ever heard of! What are these politicians thinking?
And, to boot, the parent putting the child up for adoption could have a say about whether the child can be adopted by a family of a different religion?
Try explaining to a child that he cannot be adopted and have a family because the people who want him/her are a different religion. What do you think the child would say?
Rejected again?
Laura Dennis
June 18, 2012
My birth mom, raised in a Catholic community got the choice: Protestant family, or Catholic. She chose the latter, and I was raised Catholic in a community with values similar to my biology. It should be the preference.
Laura Dennis
author of ADOPTED REALITY, A MEMOIR, available on Amazon.com
Jennifer Hutchison
June 22, 2012
What happened to separation of church and state? Since when can the government dictate the religion of our children? This is abhorrent.
Prior to an adoption, the biological parents sever all parental rights. This means they do not get a say in how the adoptive parents raise the child. If we make an exception to this for religion, then next it will be diet, and education, and choice of clothing, schools, etc. It is a slippery slope that could destroy adoption as we know it now and keep children out of loving homes. DO NOT PASS THIS BILL.