SB1738 prevents the Department of Children’s Services from denying a parent’s ability to foster or adopt based upon the parent’s religious or moral beliefs regarding “sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The House passed SB1738 on April 1, 2024, by a vote of 73 to 20. We have assigned pluses to the ayes because this bill defends the religious liberty of foster and adoptive parents. No current or prospective parent should ever be compelled to “affirm, accept, or support” LGBTQ+ ideology under threat of the full force and sanctioning of the government. Indeed, Christians and other parents who wish to adopt children, but reject fictional “gender identity” constructs, should be honored, not persecuted. Article 1, Section 3 of the Tennessee Constitution clearly states that “all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience” and that “no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience.” On the contrary, there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that can be used to support homosexuality, sex mutilation, or other forms of “gender affirming” behavior, which should be illegal. These grossly illicit, self-inhibiting, and unsanitary acts of sexual perversion violate the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” making them destructive of self-government and the family—the very foundations of a free society.