Topeka ? Some Kansas House members said Friday they are coming under increased pressure to pass a bill they have already rejected twice to allow faith-based child welfare agencies to receive state contracts and grants for foster care and adoption services, even if they refuse to place children in certain homes based on the agency’s “sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Rep. Jarrod Ousley, D-Merriam, showed the Journal-World a string of emails he and others have received in recent days, mainly from individuals, urging them to switch their votes and agree to the Senate’s version of House Bill 2481, which includes a provision called the Adoption Protection Act.

“I’ve received a ton of emails on this. Not one of them is from a child placement agency,” he said during an interview in his Statehouse office.

One of those emails was from Lamar Hunt Jr., owner of the Kansas City Mavericks hockey team and son of the founder of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Rep. Susan Humphries, R-Wichita, said she has been working hard to push the bill through in the final days of the regular session. And she said she has been speaking with at least one out-of-state adoption agency that is strongly urging the bill’s passage so it can expand into Kansas.

“I have had a couple of different organizations say, ‘Hey, if we have this protection in Kansas, it would be a place we would be interested in coming (to), but if the protection is not there, then you’re not on our list,'” Humphries said in an interview.

Humphries did not identify the agency, and she said she did not know whether the person who contacted her is registered as a lobbyist on hire to influence legislation in the Kansas Statehouse.

The original language in the bill merely updated some language in statutes dealing with adoption services. It passed the House in February, 117-0.

When it reached the Senate floor on March 28, however, Sen. Molly Baumgardner, R-Louisburg, offered an amendment to insert language for the Adoption Protection Act. The Senate approved that amendment, 24-14.

An identical bill was also pending in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee, but it was never advanced to the full House, primarily due to concerns from several members about the provision allowing such agencies to receive state grants and contracts.

The bill also is strongly opposed by gay rights groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and a number of secular child welfare agencies who contend it would result in state funding for agencies that discriminate against prospective adoptive parents who might be same-sex couples or merely people from different religious denominations.

When the Senate bill went back to the House on March 29, a motion to concur with the Senate amendment failed, 58-64. Later in the day, there was a motion to reconsider that vote, but the second vote to concur with the Senate also failed.

The bill was then sent to a conference committee. But instead of appointing members from Federal and State Affairs to be on that committee, House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr., R-Olathe, appointed the leading members of the Judiciary Committee.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Blaine Finch, R-Ottawa, said he sees the bill as merely preserving what already exists in Kansas law.

“I will tell you that the law as it stands now is that an agency could come in and work in Kansas now,” he said in an interview. “This is not a bill authorizing someone to do something. It’s a bill that says they cannot be forced to do something and cannot be denied an opportunity to deliver services.”

The bill still has not come out of that committee, and on Friday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Rick Wilborn, R-McPherson, confirmed that the conference committee was not going to work on the bill that day, pending another motion in the full House, presumably from Humphries, to concur with the Senate amendment, which would send the bill to Gov. Jeff Colyer, who has expressed support for the bill.

But the House adjourned Friday night, and that motion was never made.

“At this point I have no idea where we’re at,” Humphries said during an interview Friday. “This is a moment-by-moment decision, I think.”