NEW YORK – “As a Christian organization, our board provides adoption services only to families who share our religious values. This is to avoid conflicts or delays in the delivery of future services.” In the aseptic bureaucratic jargon of email, Elizabeth e Gabriel Rutan-Ram they found that their practice of adopting a three-year-old had been closed. The reason: the two intended parents are Jews.
Holston United Methodist Home for Children of Greenville, Tennessee, the state-funded adoption agency the couple had turned to, determined that the Rutan-Rams do not qualify. “Our agency – declared the presidency – adheres to the Christian values of the Bible and entrusts children to families who approve of our faith”.
The boy, who lives in an institution in Florida, will no longer leave for Tennessee, but the story doesn’t end there. The couple decided to sue, breaking through the controversial Tennessee law that allows state-funded adoption agencies like Holston to refuse to assist families “contrary to their own religious, moral or political rules.” .
“For the first time in my life, I felt discriminated against as a Jew,” confessed Elizabeth Rutan-Ram, 30, telling the story to Heart Gallery of Tampa, a nonprofit that helps institutionalized children find a family.
The Rutan-Rams had seen the child in January 2021, when he was about three years old, and were struck by the smile and the strength with which he faced life in the institution. “As soon as we got home, we decided to start the paperwork – Elizabeth said – We also asked Holston if being Jewish was a problem, they replied that they would let us know”.
At first, the agency had not objected: the Rutan-Rams had received the documents to fill out. The two would-be parents had been placed in the preparatory course for adoptive couples. The documentation would then be sent to Florida and finally the child could spend six months with the couple, before formalizing the adoption. In an adoption process, waiting is already a form of motherhood, in which parents imagine everything, prepare the bedroom, see themselves as mom and dad. But, on the eve of the meeting, the email arrived that blocked everything.
“It was shocking – admits the woman – it hurts the heart to think that an institution prefers to keep a child in custody rather than entrust it to a family that loves him”.
In the lawsuit, the couple not only cite their own story, but argue that the Tennessee law, passed two years ago by the Republican governor Bill Leeviolates the constitutional principles of the state. Together with the Rutan-Rams, four religious leaders and two Tennessee residents have joined in the appeal: Can a taxpayer-funded institution engage in discriminatory behavior? “The Constitution of Tennessee, like that of the United States – claims their lawyer – guarantees religious freedom and equality”.