The U.S. bishops this week issued a letter criticizing what they said were shortcomings in proposed federal rules meant to address alleged discrimination against LGBT individuals in programs receiving federal Health and Human Services grants.
HHS had issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) earlier in the summer that the department said was meant to “affirm civil rights and equal opportunity for people nationwide in HHS funded programs and services.”
The new policy would “protect LGBTQI+ people from discrimination in important health and human services programs” by “clarifying and reaffirming the prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in certain statutes” as they apply to grant recipients.
In a letter released Tuesday, the Office of the General Counsel within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops warned that the NPRM reinterprets certain federal nondiscrimination statutes in a way that could, within the operation of Catholic charities, “create conflicts between the [rule’s] requirements and Catholic teaching.”