After a contract disagreement on LGBTQ anti-discrimination language, Gov. Andy Beshear has signed a year-long contract with Sunrise Children’s Agency. The agreement will continue the state’s long relationship with Sunrise, which provides foster care, residential and therapeutic services to children and families across Kentucky.
Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration previously claimed the religious beliefs held by Sunrise violated federal law that bars private agencies from discrimination based on sexual orientation. However, the Supreme Court last month sided with a Catholic foster care agency in Pennsylvania that said its religious views prevented it from working with same-sex couples as foster parents.
Following that ruling, Beshear’s administration removed the LGBTQ anti-discrimination language they were seeking to include.
Sunrise attorney John Sheller said the agreement now includes language protecting their “sincerely held religious beliefs,” according to the Associated Press.
Sunrise opened its Owensboro program in 1995, initially offering foster care services. Since then, they have added family prevention services and independent living for adolescents ages 18-21 years old who have aged out of foster care.
In June 2019, an official told Owensboro Times that they served more than 330 clients in the area through the three programs offered there, and that they had nearly 30 employees working in Owensboro including therapists, case managers, and foster care specialists.
Dale Suttles, President of Sunrise, confirmed that the main services Owensboro provides — foster care and independent living — would have been affected by the change of language in the contract, but they will now continue with the same practices that have been in place under previous agreements. The counseling services would not have been affected.
Suttles said that if they were to find someone that qualifies to be a parent but was not the “best fit for Sunrise” they refer them to another agency to work with them.
“It is the agreement we have worked out with every single administration,” Suttles said.
Many Republican state officials have been urging the Democratic governor to renew the agreement and end the dispute.
Following the new contract, Attorney General Daniel Cameron said: “I’m glad to see the Beshear Administration follow the law and do what governors of both parties have done for decades, work with Sunrise so that the organization can continue the important work of serving Kentucky’s children.”
