Romney eyes bill exempting religious groups on bias laws

Calling it a matter of ''religious freedom," Governor Mitt Romney said yesterday that he plans to file a bill that would exempt religious organizations from the state's antidiscrimination laws to permit Catholic Charities and other religious groups to refuse to provide adoption services when doing so violates their faith.

The proposal was immediately denounced by top Democrats as unworkable and an attempt by Romney to curry favor with conservative voters as he prepares for a potential run for president. Legal scholars were divided on whether the proposal would pass constitutional muster.

Ann Dufresne, a spokeswoman for Senate President Robert E. Travaglini, said the bill would have little support in the Senate. ''Given the antidiscrimination laws and the history of gay adoption, there's been nothing to suggest that there's been a problem with these adoptions," she said.

Romney, who was attending a Republican conference in Tennessee, announced he would file the bill promptly, after Catholic Charities of Boston said yesterday it will stop providing adoption services because Massachusetts requires that qualified gays and lesbians be allowed to adopt.

''This is a sad day for neglected and abandoned children," the governor said in a statement. ''In this case, it's a mistake for our laws to put the rights of adults over the needs of children."

The Catholic bishops of the state have said that Catholic Charities could no longer arrange adoptions by same-sex couples. The bishops have said that church doctrine calls gay adoptions ''gravely immoral."

State antidiscrimination law includes an exemption for churches in instances involving core religious functions. However, Catholic Charities, which acts as an agent of the state in placing children, is subject to antidiscrimination laws involving adoption.

Romney said he wants the Legislature to change antidiscrimination laws so that religious groups can make adoption placements without compromising their tenets. His office would not specify how the exemption would work and whether it would have any implications beyond enabling religious groups to refuse to place children with same-sex couples.

Eric Fehrnstrom, the governor's spokesman, said the bill will be ''narrowly drafted to address the impediments" that prompted Catholic Charities of Boston to abandon its adoption services.

Legal scholars disagreed about whether such a measure would be constitutional. John H. Garvey, dean of Boston College Law School, said federal courts have repeatedly upheld exemptions for religious groups from federal antidiscrimination laws.

''We must not forget, in our desire to promote aims like women's equality or equality on the basis of sexual orientation, that we also need to keep an eye out for religious liberty," he said.

But Laurence H. Tribe, a leading constitutional scholar at Harvard Law School and a well-known advocate of legalized gay marriage, said Romney's proposal would probably violate the First Amendment. It would give a state-funded religious organization authority to ''impose its own theology on a broader social stage," potentially denying some couples the right to adopt and causing some children to languish longer in foster care, he said.

House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi praised Catholic Charities, which has had a contract with the state since 1977 to place children with severe physical and emotional needs. But he said in a statement that the state must ''ensure that discrimination is not tolerated in this vital publicly-supported function." He promised to review Romney's bill, but added that ''if it condones discrimination, it will violate our Constitution, and I will oppose it."

Another Democrat condemned the bill as an effort by the Republican governor to score points with conservatives as he weighs a 2008 presidential run. ''It is reprehensible that any governor would support a policy of discrimination against any group of people, regardless of whether the discrimination is based on race or creed or sexual preference," said Philip W. Johnston, chairman of the state Democratic Party.

But Fehrnstrom insisted that the governor was protecting the First Amendment. ''Catholics and people of other faiths should be allowed to carry out their mission of helping people without violating their religious beliefs," he said.

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.