President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Bill reportedly forces faith based childcare facilities to push LGBT ideology on children, reports say. Those who refuse to do so risk losing federal funding.
The Christian Headlines said the White House announced that the Build Back Better plan would allegedly cut "child care spending on young children by more than half" but provide "free preschool for all 3- and 4-year old children."
The particular White House announcement is a Fact Sheet entitled, "How the Build Back Better Act Will Deliver Critical Investments in American Veterans and their Families", released last November 11. The Fact Sheet acknowledges the struggle American Veterans and their families face in line with the high costs of their children's education and, due to this, provides them the free education they need to unburden them.
"One quarter of our nation's veterans have children living at home. President Biden's plan offers access to free preschool for all 3- and 4-year old children, providing parents access to high-quality programs in the setting of their choice, from schools to child care providers and community-based organizations to Head Start. It will enable most American families to cut their child care spending on young children by more than half," the Fact Sheet said.
The Fact Sheet cited that the bill will help maintain family spending on child care for children below six years of age to 7% of their family income. While the bill helps save $5,000 annually for child care for parents with one child and whose annual income is $100,000.
During the passage of the bill last week in the House of Representatives, Biden called it "another giant step" to help the economy move forward and "reduce costs for millions of families." He highlighted as key part of the Build Back Better Act its child care provisions and Child Tax Credit.
"It gets Americans back to work by providing child care and care for seniors so workers can get back on the job knowing their loved ones have the care they need. It cuts taxes for working families and the middle class--including extending the Child Tax Credit that is already helping the families of more than 61 million children and getting us closer to cutting child poverty in half this year," Biden said in a statement.
However, the Christian Headlines highlighted that the bill would enforce a requirement for preschool and childcare facilities to comply with all federal nondiscriminatory laws related to sexual orientation and gender identity. Though this was not mentioned in the Fact Sheet, this would mean faith-based facilities would be forced to participate in pushing LGBT ideology despite it being against firmly-held Biblical beliefs.
This particular requirement of the bill has allegedly caused organizations advocating religious liberty to be alarmed as it blocks Christian doctrine. Advocates from both Christian and Jewish institutions point out that the bill would force faith-based child care centers to follow federal nondiscriminatory laws since they would now directly receive funding from the government for the free education it promises.
In particular, just last week, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops criticized the "strings attached to the Pre-K and child-care plans" of the bill. While parents similarly signified their concern on the bill's "detrimental effects."
"It will be detrimental to our ability to participate. It would impact our ability to stick with our Catholic mission in a variety of ways. We've worked really hard to make our concerns known," USCCB Associate Director for Public Policy Janet Daniels said during an interview with The New York Times last week.
Alliance Defending Freedom, through its Senior Counsel Zack Pruitt, echoed Daniels' sentiments in a statement dated Friday, November 19. Pruitt raised that the bill is "threatening" to "life, religious freedom", and "parental rights."
"Today, congressional Democrats once again made clear how aligned they are with the radical Left's agenda by voting in favor of a bill that mandates taxpayer funding of abortion and may force faith-based childcare providers out of the system," Pruitt said.
"The bill also contains funding provisions and new grant programs that are likely to exclude many faith-based childcare providers while cutting funding to existing childcare programs currently being utilized by many faith-based providers which jeopardizes the freedom of parents to send their children to childcare programs that align with their religious beliefs," Pruitt stressed.
Pruitt then called on the Senate to reject the said provisions of the bill and instead vote for policies that actually favor the protection of life, religious freedom, and parents.
