State legislators have attempted to pass a civil unions bill in each of the past several years. Proponents likely have sufficient support to pass this year’s version, Senate Bill 11.
During recent testimony on SB 11, a troubling trend emerged. Advocates appeared comfortable using the legislation as a tool to actively discriminate against organizations operating within a religious framework. (To hear the Jan. 23 Judiciary Committee hearing, visit www.leg.state.co.us.)
Catholic Charities of Central Colorado provides vital services, feeding and clothing those in need, and assisting thousands of our poor toward self-sufficiency — without regard to their gender, race or religion. Seniors, veterans, families with children, immigrants, and the homeless receive assistance from our organization.
Catholic Charities provides adoption-related services as well. We are viewed as a trusted resource and valuable government and community partner. We offer birth-parent counseling, adoption and home-study services, and education. We are the only licensed placement agency under contract with El Paso County to provide birth-parent relinquishment counseling.
Our adoption guidelines require that we place children only with married couples. Our definition of marriage mirrors that of Article II, Section 31 of the Colorado Constitution: the union of one man and one woman.
The Catholic Church has for centuries maintained the same teaching on marriage as it does today. We must honor and adhere to this unchanging teaching because of our Catholic identity. The church’s teaching on marriage is not a negotiating point, but a long-held pillar of the faith.
Many, if not most, of those who come to us seeking to adopt a child do so because of our faith-based approach and strong reputation. In our experience, the birth parents who place with us are seeking a setting with a mother and a father. We provide an important choice for Coloradans among the many other approaches offered for child placement in the state.
Currently, same-sex couples do adopt and serve as foster parents in our state. If the civil unions bill passes, many agencies will facilitate adoption to parties in a civil union. The question is whether all agencies should be forced to.
Sadly, when conscience was not protected in places like Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., Catholic Charities was forced out of the public aspects of its vital adoption and foster care programs. Proponents of SB 11 appear to have no problem using the bill to shut down Catholic Charities’ adoption program — apparently in the area of private adoptions as well — if we refuse to violate our religious beliefs. Last year’s regular session version of the civil unions bill, as amended, included explicit conscience protections for child-placement agencies, which have all been removed this year:
• Prohibitions against forcing child-placement agencies to place children with parties in a civil union.
• Prohibitions against state agencies taking punitive action against an agency for its refusal to place children with parties to a civil union.
• Protections for child-placement agencies from being denied any grant, contract or participation in a government program because of its refusal to place with parties to a civil union.
• Limits on civil liability.
Religious liberty is a foundational principle recognized in both the U.S. and Colorado Constitutions. Free exercise of religious belief is recognized in the First Amendment. A broad conscience protection — for all individuals and entities — should be included in this bill if it will be passed.
What will it say about our state if the civil unions legislation is used as a tool to strike at religious liberty? Make no mistake, if conscience protections are not added, we are likely to face years of litigation over religious freedom that will put the national spotlight on Colorado.
Striking at religious freedom and conscience will serve no one.
Mark Rohlena is president and CEO of Catholic Charities of Central Colorado.
