CCC requests HB 1017 be amended to ensure conscience protections

Note: HB 1017 was enacted by Governor Jared Polis on April 24th. The following is the CCC’s testimony asking that the bill be amended.

The Colorado Catholic Conference requests that HB 1017, Bill of Rights for Foster Youth, be amended to ensure conscience protections for foster care providers and families.

Foster care policy should put the best interests of children first. Each year thousands of children spend time in the U.S. foster care system – ¼ waiting for adoption. Yet many of these children bounce from home to home and enter adulthood without family ties. Public policy should seek to increase the supply of loving homes for foster care by removing barriers to families and providers that seek to place children in a loving home.

However, HB 1017 imposes new barriers on providers and loving homes and violates the First Amendment rights of current and prospective foster care families. These same violations are already being litigated in Oregon and Massachusetts today. Without amendment, Colorado will likely be sued, but even more dire, thousands of Colorado children will lose an opportunity for a loving home. 

According to CO4Kids.org, there are eight faith-based foster care agencies in Colorado that place hundreds of children per year—many of these children go to loving homes of families who have reasonably held beliefs regarding human sexuality. Many of these families also offer homes within secular foster agencies.

If HB 1017 is enacted without amendment, many Catholic families who offer foster care in Colorado will no longer be able to participate because they will be compelled by the state to violate their beliefs of human sexuality. Many Catholic and faith-based families would welcome foster care for LGBTQ identifying youth, and some provisions in the Foster Care Bill of Rights would reinforce this care – but without an amendment protecting the conscience rights of the provider or prospective providers, what HB 1017 does is eliminate hundreds of available caring homes for children and increase the burden on state care and group homes, where those children will be more likely to experience mental health issues, lack of attachment, and enter into adulthood without stable family ties.

As long as faith-based foster care agencies and families meet basic requirements protecting the welfare of children, they should be free to operate according to their values, especially their sincerely held beliefs on human sexuality.

This can be done with a simple amendment to allow foster care providers and prospective providers to maintain their sincerely held beliefs.

The Colorado Catholic Conference respectfully asks the committee to amend HB 1017.