{"id":1746922,"date":"2022-11-21T12:18:50","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T17:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1746922"},"modified":"2022-11-21T12:18:53","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T17:18:53","slug":"south-carolinas-governor-fights-as-aclu-targets-faith-based-foster-agencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/south-carolinas-governor-fights-as-aclu-targets-faith-based-foster-agencies\/","title":{"rendered":"South Carolina\u2019s Governor Fights As ACLU Targets Faith-Based Foster Agencies"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsouth-carolinas-governor-fights-as-aclu-targets-faith-based-foster-agencies%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1746922&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>South Carolina\u2019s Republican governor has asked a federal court to protect the state\u2019s right to partner with faith-based foster care groups to provide homes for children in need.<\/p>\n<p>Gov. Henry McMaster sent a letter following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the governor seeking to penalize the state\u2019s work with religious foster agencies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver 3,500 of South Carolina\u2019s children are currently in foster care and we need all the help we can get to see that they are placed in loving homes,\u201d McMaster said in the <a href=\"https:\/\/becketnewsite.s3.amazonaws.com\/20221118155059\/2022-11-17-Defs-MSJ.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">letter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis lawsuit is a shortsighted attack against every South Carolinian\u2019s constitutionally-protected religious liberty. We will continue to fight against any attempt to stop our private partners from being able to help provide these critical services simply because they choose to do so in accordance with their faith,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">South Carolina\u2019s Department of Social Services works directly with families seeking to foster and adopt children in crisis. McMaster issued an executive order in 2018 to protect the religious freedom of foster agencies, including Miracle Hill Ministries, which chooses to partner with families that share its Christian faith.<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Becket Law, the legal group representing Miracle Hill\u2019s 80-year tradition of recruiting and serving families, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.becketlaw.org\/media\/south-carolina-fights-back-against-aclu-attempt-to-shutter-faith-based-foster-agencies\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">claims<\/a> the ACLU used social media to recruit individuals who did not share Miracle Hill\u2019s faith to apply to foster with the agency. The ACLU sued South Carolina and the federal government, alleging that allowing Miracle Hill to serve foster families violated the law.<span data-ccp-props=\"{\" 201341983=\"201341983\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cFaith-based agencies are effective at placing children in loving homes, and the Supreme Court unanimously protected their rights,\u201d\u00a0said Lori Windham, vice president and senior counsel at Becket<span data-contrast=\"none\">. \u201cThis attempt to shutter faith-based agencies means fewer choices for foster parents and fewer homes for kids. South Carolina decided it could do better, and it shouldn\u2019t be hauled into court for doing the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">Becket noted in a statement that the Supreme Court recently affirmed in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.becketlaw.org\/case\/sharonell-fulton-et-al-v-city-philadelphia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Fulton v. Philadelphia<\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\"> to protect Catholic Social Services\u2019 right to stick to its religious beliefs and continue serving foster children in Philadelphia. <span data-contrast=\"none\">South Carolina licenses many private agencies seeking to help children in need while also protecting the religious freedom of the people of South Carolina.<span data-ccp-props=\"{\" 201341983=\"201341983\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Miles Coleman, a partner at Nelson Mullins, also joined in the statement from Becket.<\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cSouth Carolina\u2019s efforts to protect all avenues of foster care should be applauded, not forced into a courtroom,\u201d Mullins said.<span data-contrast=\"none\">\u00a0\u201cToo many places around the country have shuttered religious foster care agencies, making it harder to find children a home. South Carolina is doing all it can to prevent that.\u201d<span data-ccp-props=\"{\" 201341983=\"201341983\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The controversy involving Miracle Hill has been the focus of legal conflict since 2018. Four years ago, the ministry was criticized for refusing to work with LGBTQ volunteers while still receiving state funding.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit from the ACLU was first launched in 2019 in <em>Rogers v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services et al. <\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>South Carolina\u2019s Republican governor has asked a federal court to protect the state\u2019s right to partner with faith-based foster care groups to provide homes for children in need. Gov. Henry McMaster sent a letter following a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":325,"featured_media":1746925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1746922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1746922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1746922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1746925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1746922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1746922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1746922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}