The Knox News reports:
A Knoxville couple is suing the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services, saying a state-sponsored Christian-based adoption agency refused to help them because they are Jewish. The adoption agency, the Holston United Methodist Home for Children based in Greeneville, Tennessee, denied Elizabeth and Gabriel Rutan-Ram from acquiring Tennessee-mandated foster-parent training and a home-study certification as they attempted to adopt a child from Florida last year, the Rutan-Rams say.
It is the state’s first lawsuit to challenge a new law that allows religious adoption agencies to deny service to families whose religious or moral beliefs aren’t in sync with the provider’s, the family’s attorney told Knox News on Wednesday. The Home for Children’s president and CEO Bradley Williams could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Instead, a receptionist at Home for Children told Knox News to email the organization’s law firm, Alliance Defending Freedom.
Read the full article. Bolding above is mine.
Tennessee passed a law designed to allow adoption agencies to turn away same-sex couples on the basis of “written religious or moral convictions or policies.”
Now a publicly funded adoption agency is declining to work with Jews too.https://t.co/X9rrvehr84
— Jacob Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) January 20, 2022
BREAKING: @americansunited brought a lawsuit today on behalf of a Jewish couple who were turned away from fostering kids by a TN government-funded foster care agency because they’re Jewish. This violates TN’s constitutional religious freedom protections. https://t.co/5jB8pjIP9H
— Rachel Laser (@rachelklaser) January 20, 2022