By ELIZBETH
VALENTIN
Arts Editor
The OK government has made it feasible for foster agencies to deny the adoption of a child on religious grounds. This specifically targets same-sex couples who are looking to adopt.
This is problematic as there are about 9,600 children in the custody of the state’s foster care system. According to the Oklahoma Fosters Initiative (OFI), “More than 1,000 children in state custody have a goal of adoption.”
To deny the adoption of a child or children to same-sex couples could be detrimental to a child who has been in the foster care system. This is especially true when most children who are adopted by the state “are adopted by their foster families” while only a small percentage are adopted by their extended biological family. By restricting the ability of a same-sex couple to adopt shrinks the pool of options that the children have for being adopted according to OFI.
Also according to OFI, 36 percent of children in the state live in single-parent families. This is to say that one third of children live without only one parent, which means that they either grow up without a mother or without a father. Rarely do people make the claim that this hinders a child’s development on the grounds of religion.
The fact of the matter is that this is an issue of religion. This country is not meant to have any set religion, but time and time again, we see that religion is instituted as law on a state and national level.
There is no reason that lawmakers should have the option to impose their religious beliefs on their constituents. This is because the people who came to America first and who developed the foundation of this county did so, in part, to escape religious persecution. That is a fundamental reason why there is no national religion and why people have freedom of religion.
That being said, it seems as though those who do not follow Christianity are forced to follow the religious doctrine regardless. This is because the people who are in power use their own beliefs to dictate what everyone should follow. This is despite the fact that Christianity is not a religion that the entire nation follows on an individual level.
According to a poll conducted by ABC News and Bellefnet poll, 83 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Most of the rest, 13 percent, have no religion.” This is to say that of all Americans, 45,851,000 have no religion, while 13,028,000 Americans fall into some other religion that is not Christianity.
There is no reason why over 50,000,000 Americans should subscribe to a religion that they do not truly belong to in the form of law. To make this large number of people who are supposed to have freedom of religion follow laws that are solely based on Christianity suggests that we don’t truly have freedom of religion in this country.
Laws should provide secular rules for all to follow, but instead, we continue to see that this is not actually the case.
The adoption of a child should not be determined by whether the person or people looking to adopt are single, married, same-sex, hetero-sexual, male, or female. The adoption of a child should focus on whether the person looking to adopt the child is able to financially provide for the child and whether they are able to provide a loving, caring, and safe environment for the child.
If there is no reason to believe that a person or people are not capable of doing all of these things for the child, there should then be no reason that they should be denied the adoption.
While this is said, many argue that if a person does follow the doctrine of Christianity they should be allowed to deny services based on their beliefs. The fact of the matter is that this should not be the case. Religion should not be used as a mask to hide in order to discriminate against others for whatever reason.
While this is all what should happen, it is clear that the state and federal governments do not believe this to be true. We can see this through the Muslim Ban, anti-abortion laws, and the controversy surrounding bathroom laws for members of the transsexual community.
This is something that goes further than the adoption of a child. There are too many discriminatory laws that have been attempted to pass or have succeeded in passing, which all hinder the livelihood of people in minority groups and people whose cycle of oppression continues to perpetuate in this country.
