Sunrise Children’s Services defends policies amid accusations
- Apr 6, 2008 - 1
Gay couple alleges discrimination over denial of adoption
Louisville—Sunrise Children’s Services has found itself again the target of accusations of discrimination concerning the issue of homosexuality.
In an article published in the Louisville Courier-Journal March 3, a homosexual male couple contends that they were unexpectedly rejected last month from an adoption program conducted by the Kentucky Baptist agency. According to the newspaper, the pair claims they had been accepted as prospective adoptive parents; had attended two of the five required training classes; and had even passed an in-home visit performed by a Sunrise employee.
The two men maintained that they were up front about their living arrangement and that the agency knew about it from the beginning.
“There were a lot of inconsistencies” in the Courier-Journal’s article, said Bill Smithwick, president of Sunrise Children’s Services, who categorically denied many of the statements made by the couple in the article. “They were never approved by us. That is for certain.”
According to Smithwick and Karen Taylor, vice president for marketing and advancement, in January, only one of the men applied to Sunrise and initially did not disclose his living arrangement. In addition, Smithwick pointed out that the two men said they wanted to adopt a specific child who already was in the care of a Sunrise-approved foster family but was an unlikely candidate for adoption. Smithwick added that adoption was not an option for the men, because the agency requires would-be adoptive parents to first become foster parents.
When Sunrise realized that the pair was unmarried and living together, Taylor confirmed that they were rejected on the basis of the agency’s policy that does not allow couples—heterosexual or homosexual—who cohabitate to become foster parents, adopt or to work for the agency.
Sunrise “made a letter available to (one of the men) stating that our reason for not approving them was the cohabitation issue,” Smithwick said. “We tried to keep the homosexuality issue … out of this.”
That’s because in 1998, former employee Alicia Pedreira was fired from the agency—then known as Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children—after it was discovered that she was gay, a violation of the organization’s employment policy.
The agency was forced to defend itself—as a faith-based entity operating with state funding—against Pedreira’s charges of discrimination. A judge denied the former employee’s claim, but permitted a separate claim to proceed arguing that Sunrise’s state funding is unconstitutional—a case that remains in litigation.
So why not inform the men that they were denied because they are in a homosexual relationship?
“We’ve just tried to get around this without all of this fire because it gets very intense on us,” Smithwick said. “Obviously, homosexuals aren’t going to be able to be married and are not, therefore, going to be able to be approved.
“But we do not employ homosexuals and, no, we would not approve homosexual individuals” as foster or adoptive parents, he emphasized. “We’ve made a tremendous stand on it. We will still make a stand on it.”
Smithwick also indicated that in rejecting the couple’s application, Sunrise Children’s Services did not violated any state laws or regulations.
According to a statement from Anya Armes Weber, a spokesperson with the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, the commonwealth “sets minimum standards for private child care agencies.” With more than 50 agencies that have contracts with the state, she added, “These agencies may set reasonable, higher standards beyond the department’s minimum requirements.”
Smithwick even pointed to a provision in the state’s contract with Sunrise Children’s Services “that we meet the spiritual needs of the children; we just can’t be coersive with it,” he said.
Kentucky allows homosexual individuals or couples to adopt children and be foster parents. Smithwick pointed out that there are just as many agencies that will permit homosexuals to adopt as there are that restrict the practice.
However, a state legislator was quoted in the Courier-Journal article as saying that Sunrise and other agencies that have similar restrictive policies should have their state funding reviewed and potentially revoked.
“They shouldn’t discriminate against us,” Smithwick replied. “There should be the same tolerance for us who have a different set of values that drive our mission, policies and procedures.
“I don’t think there should be that sort of intolerance of the Judeo-Christian ethic in ministries like ours whose mission it is to serve these kids from a faith-based perspective,” he added.
Smithwick estimated that at least 65 percent of the agency’s $23 million yearly budget is provided by state funds in the form of reimbursements. That calculates to nearly $15 million from the Commonwealth of Kentucky on which Sunrise depends.
“Back in 2000, we had a real showdown with the state about whether or not they would contract with us,” he recalled. “We don’t want to get to that point again.”
“Should the state do something so horribly dramatic as to pull funding from faith-based agencies,” Taylor explained, “the burden would fall on the children because there would be no place for them to go.”
Last year, Sunrise served about 2,000 children through its residential treatment and foster care programs. On any given day, Smithwick estimated, the agency attends to as many as 450 children.
“Without that state funding, we’d probably serve 50 kids” daily, he predicted, describing the partnership between Sunrise and the state of Kentucky as one that has benefited both entities. “It has not prohibited us from meeting the spiritual needs of the children and there’s nothing that prohibits us from doing that.”
With this latest round of accusations, as well the ongoing battle with the American Civil Liberties Union in U.S. District Court, Smithwick said the agency continues “to stand firm against fierce opposition. I think Baptists in Kentucky need to realize this is a big deal.
“We’re about serving the Lord and serving kids,” he added. “We stand for what Kentucky Baptists and, I think, most Kentuckians … agree: That what we do is what we think is best for kids. It’s biblically-based, but it also is what’s best for kids.
“It’s a difficult situation, but we’ve been here before and we’re going to continue to do what we think is right.”
This article is reprinted from the March 11, 2008, issue of the Western Recorder, the newspaper of the Kentucky Baptist Convention.
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1 On Jul 18th, 2008, at 2:26pm, Louise wrote:
I hope that Sunrise loses every penny of it’s government funding.