As a citizen of this commonwealth, I must urge the board of social services to approve the policy changes proposed to amend the protected classes in adoptive parent discrimination.  If we are to say as a society that turning a capable parent away for attributes such as a physical disability or years of patriotic service is wrong and 'not who we are' then why not codify those protections?  Especially pertaining to the issue of sexual orientation, I am reminded of our Governor's weightless executive directive stating that we simply do not discriminate against gay and lesbian state employees.  It carried that same aura of 'it's not who we are' and laughs at the notion that such principles should be proudly held up in our laws and binding policies.

As a practicing and learned Christian, I can not in good conscience see the logic in "protecting the religious liberty" of those organizations charged with children who are wards of the state.  In and of itself that is unAmerican and questionably constitutional at best.  Furthermore, the notion that a Christian organization would turn people away based on a crude judgment of their "sins" or simply for being of another faith or even denomination is disgusting.  Our lord called us to love our neighbors, not the neighbors we agree with or worship with; not our upstanding Christian neighbors, but all of our neighbors.

Sure, by some stretch of the imagination that argument of religious liberty could be made, but it simply doesn't work for any of this state's major religious sects, and certainly Catholic Christianity.  It is in good coomon sense and the work of faith that we must push against discrimination and the unloving carelessness with which many fight against it.  For the truth of the matter is that these are deserving children who need good homes, not good White-Anglo-Saxon, Christian, heterosexual and cisgendered, able-bodied, non-veteran homes.  It is that very diversity in upbringing that helps young people grow into understanding and tolerant adults, and ultimately better people.  How can people of faith not claim that as their goal?

I hope that the board will see these comments from the public and understand what people are calling for.  But more than this, I hope you will recall the principles on which a funtiontiong republican democracy is built; that the majority is tobe ultimately respected in so far that it does not harm the minority, that rights being voted on is oxymoronic in the eyes of our American principles.