As it’s currently written, H4950 would permit faith-based child welfare organizations contracting with the state of South Carolina to discriminate against LGBTQ families, single mothers, atheists and others when making foster care and adoption decisions.

This bill would permit the religious ideologies of child welfare agencies to take priority over an obligation to care for the state's most in-need children. This provision serves no purpose other than allowing faith-based organizations to “decline to provide any service that conflicts with, or provide any service under circumstances that conflict with, a sincerely-held religious belief or moral conviction of the faith-based child placing agency,” plainly targeting LGBTQ families and individuals in particular.

As we have seen in several other states, this would be done by flipping the script and purporting to prohibit the state from discriminating against these organizations for their religious belief. South Carolina’s provision is actually even worse than these other bills, since it lacks language stating that faith-based child welfare organizations still must follow all other state or federal laws.

Not only is this provision unconstitutional, it is deeply unethical. Passing H4950 with this discriminatory language would be a moral failure on the part of the South Carolina legislature.