HHS Moves To Lift LGBT-Bias Funding Strings

Walter OlsonOn Friday, the Department of Health and Human Servicesproposed to rescind some regulations issued in the final days of the Obama administration that required recipients of HHS program funds to observe nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.The move, which now enters a public comment period, is beingcovered in thepress as an issue of religious accommodation: should church-affiliated agencies be allowed to participate in federally funded adoption and foster care placements even if they decline to serve same-sex couples as clients? And that is indeed one of the hotly contested issues.But it is worth a moment to examine how the latest HHS initiative might also be grounded in two other values, the rule of law and pluralism, including that characteristically American contribution to pluralism known as federalism.From the start, the Obama regulations had a problem, which was that they proposed to enforce as regulation a body of federal law that... doesn't exist. Congress has had many chances to attach funding strings of this sort requiring LGBT nondiscrimination of federal aid recipients. It hasn't done so.Likewise, the Supreme Court could have taken some of the principles involved in Obergefell and run with them to develop follow-on doctrines about government expenditures. It hasn't. So on what basis does a federal department begin enforcing such rules anyway? Because appointees decide it would be a nice idea? (The rules apply to a rang...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs