A new bill has been introduced in Alabama by Republican and Democrat lawmakers that would get rid of the “God loophole” for religious daycares. What’s the God loophole, you’re wondering? This loophole is a law that has been around for a long time that currently “exempts more than 900 religious day cares from state oversight.” The bill, known as the Child Care Safety Act, would “require all day cares in Alabama to be licensed and inspected, and they would have to meet basic safety standards such as child-to-staff ratios and worker training.”
A new bill has been introduced in Alabama by Republican and Democrat lawmakers that would get rid of the “God loophole” for religious daycares. What’s the God loophole, you’re wondering? This loophole is a law that has been around for a long time that currently “exempts more than 900 religious day cares from state oversight.” The bill, known as the Child Care Safety Act, would “require all day cares in Alabama to be licensed and inspected, and they would have to meet basic safety standards such as child-to-staff ratios and worker training.”
The new bill was proposed to combat the fact that churches and religious daycares in Alabama don’t have to “train workers, meet minimum staff-to-child ratios or be inspected regularly.” Additionally, if there is a complaint filed against a religious day care, state officials are currently barred from investigating the complaint. This is a big reason why lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have come together in agreement that a bill like the Child Care Safety Act is just plain common sense. Rep. Pebblin Warren, D-Tuskegee, a sponsor of the bill, said:
“Health and safety licensing and inspections of all child care in Alabama is a common-sense protection, and I couldn’t be more proud to stand with my colleagues from both sides of the aisle on this critical children’s issue. If we as a state can require restaurants, tattoo parlors, and hair salons to be licensed, then why on earth would we not expect the same oversight for those programs and facilities caring for children.”
Not having bills in place like the Child Care Safety Act is doing a disservice to children. Just last year, dozens of reports were filed by parents from across the country, claiming their children were treated badly or cared for poorly at unlicensed religious facilities. Some reports included instances where children were punched, slapped, and locked in closets. In one report, an Alabama woman was found to be running “at least a dozen dangerous daycares out of reach of regulators by declaring herself a church, even though she had no services or congregation.” Additionally, many secular providers in Alabama who were “shut down for putting children at risk were able to reopen by rebranding themselves as religious entities.”
It should be noted that this is not an attack on religious freedom. It’s not an attack on churches and religious daycares to hold them to the same safety standards as non-religious daycares. As Melanie Bridgeforth, executive director of the advocacy group VOICES for Alabama’s Children, said recently, “there are a lot of issues that are polarizing right now, but this isn’t one of them. This is about keeping children safe. There’s support on both sides of the aisle for this.” And she’s right. There was even support from faith leaders when drafting the new legislation.
So far the bill has been met with a lot of support from legislators, daycare providers, religious leaders, and parents agreeing that the Child Care Safety Act is a common-sense way to keep children safe.
Sources:
Child Care Safety Act Would Give State Oversight Of Religious Day Cares
As Number Of Licensed Child Care Centers Declines in Alabama, Nonprofits Work To Reverse the Trend
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