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Federal Judge Denies Attorney General Dana Nessel's Motion in LGBTQ Adoption Case

U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker issued a preliminary injunction last month that will continue to allow faith-based adoption agencies contracting with the state, despite its same-sex non-discrimination provision, to discriminate against same-sex couples hoping to adopt. This is the result of St. Vincent Catholic Charities, who are suing the state of Michigan after a settlement was made earlier this year mandating that faith-based adoption and foster agencies do not discriminate based on the sexual orientation of potential parents. Nessel is appealing this decision in a higher court and requested a pause to Jonker's decision, but was denied.
Jonker said that the state attorneys "offered nothing new" and "failed to come to grips" that supported the argument that Nessel engaged in "religious targeting" when she focused on St. Vincent Catholic Charities in her lawsuit. Nessel has denied having hostility toward faith-based agencies that contracted with the state and said that so long as they "agreed not to discriminate" in a state contract they should be held responsible.
"They signed those contracts themselves, nobody made them do that," she said. "… When you don't discriminate against prospective people who want to adopt children you end up with more children being adopted. That's a fact. Every study that you can look at indicates that that's the case, and that's what we ought to be doing."

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