Radical ideological orthodoxy trammels parental rights, needs of children

Discrimination against Christians continues unabated as for the third time in four years public officials have sought to not allow qualified Christians to serve as foster or adoptive parents because they reject the current orthodoxy on gender ideology.

In the dispute at the heart of this column, despite an acute shortage of caregivers willing and able to be respite or placement resources for children and youth experiencing increased mental, behavioral, and physical health needs, officials forbade a Christian couple in Washington from serving as foster parents. In fact, while 358 children spent 4,570 nights sleeping in hotels, offices, or other temporary accommodations in 2023, officials refused to permit Shane and Jennifer DeGross, parents of two children, to continue to foster youngsters. Yet, between 2013-22 the DeGrosses had fostered four girls: a newborn for three months, two toddlers for about two years each, and a third toddler for two weeks.

Earlier, in 2020, in another case from Washington, great-grandparents successfully challenged their being denied the opportunity to serve as foster parents for their infant great-granddaughter. Officials denied the great-grandparents’ request because they would not “support hormone therapy” for a hypothetical child experiencing gender dysphoria or otherwise speak or act against their religious beliefs.

In Blais v. Hunter a federal trial court held that officials violated the great-grandparents’ right to the free exercise of religion because they cannot bar caregivers solely due to their beliefs on human sexuality. The court reasoned that the underlying regulations and policies largely burdened potential caregivers with sincere religious beliefs but almost no others.

Last year, in an ongoing dispute from Oregon that I described in CWR, officials refused to allow Jessica Bates, a widowed mother of five “to adopt siblings from foster care,” both under the age of nine. Ms. Bates sought to adopt due to her Christian beliefs to care for orphans and to seek justice for the fatherless. Officials rejected Bates’ application based on its rule that those seeking to adopt must “accept” and “support” the sexual orientation and gender identity of children placed in their homes.

Returning to the DeGrosses, Alliance Defending Freedom, a public interest law firm focused on safeguarding religious freedom filed suit on their behalf on March 22, 2024. The DeGrosses dispute revised regulations from Washington’s Department of Children, Youth, and Families (WDCYF) requiring foster parents to use the pronouns and names children select based on their perceived gender identities rather than their actual sexes. Such regulations could also obligate foster parents to take children to cultural events such as “pride” parades.

Based on their Christian faith, the DeGrosses informed officials at the foster agency that they would love and support any children placed in their home but could not lie to them about who they are or encourage them to reject their sexes. Consequently, when they tried to renew their foster license in 2022, they were rejected because a revised regulation left “no room for compromise” as to their religious beliefs.

In their initial First Amendment claim seeking a permanent injunction, the DeGrosses challenged the regulations as violating their rights to speech and association by requiring them to refrain from expressing their views on human sexuality while demanding their compliance with the WDCFY’s position. The DeGrosses made a good case that the policies fail to meet the constitutional standard of having a compelling governmental interest that is sufficiently narrowly tailored to avoid infringing on their fundamental rights.

The complaint added that the policies were impermissibly overly broad because they grant officials unrestricted discretion to limit their rights to speech and association.

Turning to free exercise, the DeGrosses questioned the regulations as significantly burdening their rights because they are neither neutral toward religion nor generally applicable insofar as they “condition their ability to provide foster care on their willingness to do things that violate their religious beliefs, like using self-selected pronouns or taking a child to pride parades.” This, the DeGrosses observed, impermissibly burdens their rights by forcing them to choose between violating their faith and serving needy children consistent with their beliefs.

As to the Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection, the complaint succinctly noted that the policies “invidiously discriminates based on religion and treats the DeGrosses worse than similarly situated persons who do not share their religious beliefs.” Finally, ADF requested attorney fees plus nominal and punitive damages against the Secretary of the WDCYF for violating the DeGrosses’ rights.

In light of the cases discussed above, combined with the Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene in a dispute from Indiana I recently discussed in CWR wherein state officials removed a fifteen-year-old from his home even though the parents were fit because they disagreed with his identifying as female, ideology rules. Radical ideological orthodoxy trammels parental rights and the needs of children lacking good, loving homes if adults remain faithful to their Christian beliefs. This approach stands constitutional rights on their ears by imposing the state’s preferred gender ideology on people of faith, running roughshod over their beliefs.

Of course, all deserve respect regardless of their sexual orientations, actual or perceived. At the same time, because respect is supposed to be mutual, why do public officials impose their wills in ignoring the constitutional rights of believers by excluding qualified, loving adults from caring for children needing homes based on their religious beliefs? Moreover, in cases such as Blais, why should the state’s preferred gender trump familial bloodlines and the needs of a one-year-old whose great-grandparents sought to provide her with loving care? It is impossible to believe this was in the child’s best interest.

Public officials typically claim to be acting under the best interests of children. However, it is hard to accept this intention was in Blais when the grandparents were rejected based on their responses to hypothetical questions clearly unrelated to the care of a one-year-old child. Plus, are state officials truly acting in the best interests of minors when they support the use of hormone therapy with which parents and/or caregivers disagree? Of course not. Instead, perhaps officials should advise minors who likely lack maturity to understand fully what they seek to do, and to wait until reaching adulthood to decide whether to seek potentially unalterable procedures and medications.

Caring for minors identifying as transgender must be addressed with sensitivity. Still, how often does this issue arise with younger children, as in Blais justifying officials there and in DeGross who acted categorically in denying caregivers opportunities to provide needed loving homes based on their religious beliefs? If anything, state officials are overreaching in imposing a pall of orthodoxy on those whose religious beliefs do not align with their politically correct values du jour, leaving needy children at their not so tender mercy.