Out-of-state political interests are taking up sides over a Kansas faith-based adoption bill pitting religious freedom against LGBT rights.
The Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign and the 1st Amendment Partnership are pouring thousands of dollars into the state as they battle over the bill as the Legislature heads into its closing days.
The Human Rights Campaign estimates it has spent thousands urging its members across Kansas to oppose the bill, which it says will lead to discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents.
Meanwhile, the 1st Amendment Partnership, which has ties to Kansas, has spent $10,000 to create a website advocating passage of the bill, which is intended to ensure that faith-based adoption providers will be allowed to operate within their religious faith.
The bill stipulates that no child placement agency shall be denied a license or contract “solely because of the agency’s objection to performing, assisting, counseling, recommending, consenting to, referring or otherwise participating in a placement that violates such agency’s sincerely held religious beliefs.”
The $10,000 expenditure makes the 1st Amendment Partnership among the biggest spenders during the first three months of this legislative session.
“We are all in here in Kansas,” said Chris Sgro, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign and a former North Carolina legislator who fought a law in that state negating a Charlotte ordinance extending civil rights to LGBT people.
“Thousands of members across Kansas are being mobilized to talk to their folks here in the Legislature,” Sgro said. “We’re having events across the state, and we are doing everything to mobilize our members.”
Sgro couldn’t say how much the Human Rights Campaign was spending in Kansas, and a lobbying report hasn’t been filed yet with the state ethics commission. Sgro said the spending was in the thousands. “We don’t have a final number yet,” he said.
Sgro and Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, were at the Capitol on Thursday to a hold a news conference to call on lawmakers to reject the adoption bill, which was passed in the Senate but was sent to a conference committee by the House.
They were joined by several other groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and Equality Kansas. The ACLU has spent about $13,000 this session, but that has been focused on voting rights issues.
On the other side of the issue is the 1st Amendment Partnership, a group headquartered in Washington, D.C., that spun off from the American Religious Freedom Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center about four years ago.
Tim Schultz, the organization’s president, grew up near Wichita, graduated from Kansas State University and worked as a staffer for former U.S. Sen Bob Dole.
Former Republican state Rep. Lance Kinzer of Olathe serves as the organization’s director of policy and government relations. As a lawmaker, he was one of the Legislature’s leading opponents of abortion.
One of the group’s board members is John Lewis, president of Lewis Legal News, which publishes four weekly business and legal newspapers in Kansas. He also founded Newspaper Placement Service, which places notices on behalf of attorney clients in newspapers across Kansas, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska.
The American Religious Freedom Program and some of its leaders had been involved in Kansas previously. The group helped draft the controversial 2014 bill that was intended to protect florists, bakers and others from being forced to help with same-sex weddings against their religious faith. The bill ultimately was scrapped after it was criticized for discriminating against same-sex couples.
The group also backed a 2016 bill that former Gov. Sam Brownback signed into law that allowed faith-based groups on college campuses to restrict membership to like-minded people. Opponents of that bill said it was an attempt to legalize discrimination, as well.
This year, the 1st Amendment Partnership took a more low-key approach on the adoption bill. It did not draft the bill, nor did it testify on the legislation, Schultz said.
“We’re a group that’s been involved in helping this legislation. No question,” Schultz said. “However, we are not the group behind this legislation.”
The website financed by the organization gives supporters a way to contact lawmakers with a standard message that expresses disappointment with the House decision to send the adoption bill to a conference committee.
“I am shocked that in Kansas our elected officials would refuse to protect groups like Catholic Charities from political activists who would shut them down for ideological reasons,” the message states.
“The idea that secular agencies are acceptable but religious agencies like Catholic Charities are not is offensive to me. As your constituent I respectfully request that you support the Adoption Protection Act if it comes up for another vote.”
Schultz stressed the group’s involvement in the adoption legislation is far less than its role in trying to get the religious freedom bill passed in 2014. In that case, Schultz testified for the bill and was more involved. Not so on the adoption bill, he said.
The group’s goal, he said, is to help various groups seeking to protect their religious freedom, something that occasionally intersects with LGBT rights following the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage.
“There are conflicts between LGBT rights and religious freedom,” Schultz said. “Most faith communities want them resolved on the side of religious freedom.”
The future of the adoption bill is still not clear with the Legislature scheduled to go home by May 4.
Republican state Rep. Blaine Finch, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said lobbying on the adoption bill was “up there” when compared to other legislation.
“There’s a lot of interest both ways on it,” Finch said. “I wouldn’t say it’s radically more than some, but it’s more than others.”
And the bill’s future? It’s cloudy, given that there are 30 different bills pending in conference committee.
“It’s certainly one that’s on the radar, and we’re having discussions about it,” he said. “I am hopeful we can have some conversations and see how it plays out. I really don’t know yet whether it will come back out (on the floor) or not. There’s still too much in flux.”
