Lutheran Group Denies Gay Adoption

A Lutheran family services group has denied a Chicago gay couple's recent attempts to adopt a local homeless youth on the groundsthat the couple is gay , according to Fox Chicago News.

After living together for seven years and getting legally married in Canada, Fred Steinhauer and Matt Nalett, residents of the city's Lakeview neighborhood, made the decision to expand their family when Nalett began working with teenagers at a local organization for runaways.

It was while volunteering that Nalett met a 15-year-old boy who had been a ward of the state for seven years after being taken from his biological family because of unfit living conditions. The boy -- who identifies as gay -- eventually fled his most recent group home to escape the bullying he was subjected to by other residents.

In spite of successful background checks, home inspections, and meetings with the runaway youth's therapist and caseworker, Steinhauer and Nalett's adoption efforts came to a screeching halt when an orientation instructor handed them a policy statement outlining Lutheran Child and Family Services' refusal to "develop or license adoptive or foster care families who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning."

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services defends the Lutheran group's right as a religious-based adoption agency to disregard the antidiscrimination laws with which other agencies are legally compelled to comply.

Lutheran Child and Family Services received $19.9 million in state funding in the 2010 fiscal year alone.