Suffer the little children ...

Two New York Times stories out of Illinois, this week.

The first story is that of Lamar West. Lamar was taken from his birth parents, for reasons related to drug abuse, when he was four. He was adopted by Frankie Lee West when he was five. His birth records were changed to show his adoption. His surname was changed to that of his adoptive mother. He became part of a large family, some adopted and some the natural children of his new mother.

From what I can glean from the story, he lived a normal childhood. At age 17, he moved out of the house for a few months, because of over-crowding, but kept in regular contact with his mom. He then returned to his house. It was empty. As Lamar puts it, his mother had "upped and went."

Lamar was abandoned one month before he turned 18. Eighteen is the age when adoptive parents in Illinois stop receiving state assistance. Lamar is now 20. He's had one brief phone call with his mother. She did not invite him back. He has since married and has a child of his own. He still misses the family in which he was raised.

The NYT writer points out that this is a common problem in Illinois. Abandoned children over 18 are adults. The state has no further responsibility for them, financial or otherwise. Many end up on the street, homeless.

"D.C.F.S. is aware that not all placements are perfect matches", the article notes.

The second article, also in the New York Times, reports that the Catholic bishops of Illinois have closed down most of the Catholic Charities affiliates in Illinois. Catholic Charities is one of the largest social service organizations in the nation, providing services to poor persons of all faiths. Sixty percent of its income is from government programs. Three percent comes from diocesan and parish funds. The rest comes from charitable contributions and investments.

Among the services provided by Catholic Charities in Illinois is arrangement of adoptions. Last summer, Illinois's attorney general told the organization that it must henceforth comply with the state's anti-discrimination laws. Therefore, in determinating suitability of adoptive parents, it could no longer consider whether the parents were of the same or opposite sexes.

Rather than permit Catholic Charities to place children with same-sex parents, the Illinois bishops have shut down the entire organization within Illinois.

The bishops feel their religious freedom is being attacked. "In the name of tolerance, we’re not being tolerated,” said Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill.

A teacher from Marion, Ill., Tim Kee, and his long time partner, Rick Wade, both Catholic, tried to adopt through Catholic Charities. They were turned down.

I'm not sure what lesson, if any, can be drawn from considering these two stories together. Certainly, churches should not be forced to act against their principles. But what if the church were one that had religious objections to mixed marriages? How should the state react to a religious organization that refused, on principle, to allow a white male and African-American female (or vice versa), to adopt a child of any race?

Illinois is seeing skyrocketing numbers of "failed adoptions," as kids who were adopted 15 years or so ago are now turning 18. The motive for many of those adoptions, it now seems, was financial. "Not all placements are perfect matches," as the the NYT article summarizes the state's position. At the same time, the state has been providing over sixty percent of the operating budgets of an agency -- unquestionably an excellent and highly responsible provider of services -- that won't permit a school teacher and his long time partner to adopt a child -- for no reason other than that they are not of opposite sexes.

The bishops of Illinois have thus made the decision that it is preferable to allow the state's bureaucratic placement of a child with a single parent whose only motive is to receive state assistance payments -- or to allow the child to grow to maturity living in an orphanage -- rather than itself place the child with two men or women who -- presumably -- would raise the child in a loving and stable environment.

Maybe they are correct. They no doubt are acting in accord with their sincere convictions. But maybe, with a little thought and a little prayer, they could figure out a course of action that considers the immediate impact of their actions upon the lives of others, not merely their actions' conformity with abstract principles.