Based on you comments, I called the LDS adoption agency and Nashua and they told me that they do in fact offer adoption services in the state. I asked, “And you don’t place kids with same-sex couples.” She cryptically answered, “That depends.”

This is an important question and I’d like to crowd-source (whoo hoo! first time I’ve ever used that term). Here’s a mess of questions I won’t have time to get to this week (or next) but maybe the BoxTurtle community can split them up and report back.

1. Does LDS currently offer adoption services in Massachusetts (I’ve garnered the answer to that one: yes, based on their Nashua office response)
2. Does LDS currently place children with non-LDS couples in MA?
3. Does LDS currently place children with same-sex married couples in MA?
4. Do official LDS adoption agencies currently receive any state or federal funds, or have a contract with the state of MA?
5. What does current MA discrimination law say about religious adoption agencies?

If anyone has this info, please let us know and specify your source.

Thanks to Pryia and Ben for bringing this up.

The issue for catholic adoption services in MA was not that the services HAD to let same sex couples adopt– which, as you note, they had allowed before marriage equality, and over the stopping of which several of their board members resigned– but because they wanted state money to do it.

I believe there is Mormon agency in Boston which does not accept state money, and which is free to discriminate as they wish.

Also important to note, Cathloic Social services is not the church, just asthe ocean grove pavilion in New Jersey was not the Methodist church, just as Elaine photography is not a church. And this is why anti discrimination laws come into effect.

You’re the one that has it wrong. The mormons operate an adoption agency in Massachusetts and refuse to adopt to same sex couples. They are allowed to do so because they don’t take state funding. Here it is from the Mormons themselves:

http://www.mormonlawyers.com/2008/10/reply-to-morris-thurston.html

“LDS Family Services still operates in Massachusetts, as it does in California. There are several differences between LDSFS and Catholic Charities. LDSFS does not take federal or state funds; Catholic Charities does. LDSFS facilitates only voluntary adoptions and permits the birth mother to approve the adoptive parents. Catholic Charities handled non-voluntary adoptions (where the state seizes the children) and normally did not accommodate birth mother approval. Catholic Charities had contracts with the state and was, in effect, acting as an agent of the state. LDSFS does not. To date, LDS Family Services has never been forced to place any children with a gay couple, and has never been sued for not doing so.”