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With Christmas approaching, I know you’re busy. But I’m writing to make you aware of an urgent situation and to request your help.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is considering REVERSING the previous administration’s decision to penalize faith-based organizations working in the arena of adoption and foster care. This is a welcome development for those of us whose Christian convictions motivate them to care for vulnerable children, but it isn’t set in stone yet.
HHS has invited public comment on the potential change (known as proposed rule RIN 0991-AC16) on its web site. Not surprisingly, those who oppose the right of faith-based groups to receive grants for adoption and foster services are actively fighting this change.
Focus on the Family and many other faith-based organizations have already submitted comments, but HHS needs to hear from citizens at the grassroots level as well. Will you add your voice to those of the many individuals and faith-based organizations who have spoken out IN FAVOR of HHS’s proposed rule?
Here’s what you can say to HHS when you submit your comments:
- I strongly affirm and support proposed rule RIN 0991-AC16, which would protect and strengthen the ability of religious organizations to offer practical assistance to vulnerable children in the arena of adoption and foster care.
- Prohibiting religious groups from providing critical services to underserved and at-risk kids not only violates the principles of religious freedom, it also severely diminishes the degree to which help is available to the children who need it most. When faith-based groups are denied the ability to live out their convictions in the public arena, children suffer.
- RIN 0991-AC16 upholds our nation’s highest virtues of pluralism and religious liberty; it empowers religious organizations and individuals to retain their critical role of caring for those who are marginalized and vulnerable; and most importantly, it removes barriers to giving children in foster care what they so desperately need—loving, stable, forever homes.
You don’t have to write your own version; feel free to copy the comments above and submit them on the HHS web site here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/11/19/2019-24385/office-of-the-assistant-secretary-for-financial-resources-health-and-human-services-grants. Simply click the green “Submit a Formal Comment” button and paste your text in the field.
THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMITTING COMMENTS IS TOMORROW, DECEMBER 19, AT MIDNIGHT EASTERN TIME. So please submit your feedback now! HHS has stated that comments submitted after the deadline will not be considered.
Thanks in advance for your attention. Your feedback will help ensure that faith-based organizations can continue ministering to children in foster care without fear of being penalized by the federal government. God bless you!
Jim Daly |
