The number of children and youth in foster care far outweighs the number of licensed foster families. Despite that, Christian families in several states have found themselves shut out of the process as a result of their traditional beliefs on gender and sexuality.
In Massachusetts, one licensed foster family lost their license, despite successfully caring for nearly 30 foster children since 2019, after they declined to sign the state’s new Foster Parent Agreement. The new agreement requires a participating foster family to unequivocally support and affirm a child’s desire to medically transition or identify as the opposite gender. Another Massachusetts couple, while fostering a one-year-old, allowed their license to expire after they informed the state they couldn’t sign on to the policy.
The Christian legal firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has sued on behalf of families in Massachusetts, Vermont, Oregon, and Washington who risk having their licenses revoked or, in some cases, have already lost their licenses due to refusing to sign policies that violated their consciences and religious beliefs.
In Washington state, officials declined to renew the foster care license of Shane and Jennifer DeGross after they refused to sign the new regulations.
“Every child deserves a loving home, and when the state puts ideology above children, and when Christian families who exercise their faith are discriminated against, it only harms children, and it decreases the number of foster families,” Shane DeGross told Fox News. “Foster families do an incredible job of standing in the gap for these children, so when the state discriminates against people of faith, only children are harmed.”
Religious freedom advocates and faith-based foster care and adoption groups hope a recent executive order (EO) by the Trump administration will lend support to plaintiffs in several of these cases where families have been barred from adoption or foster care due to disagreement with state policies on sexuality and gender.
The EO seeks to address the foster care crisis in myriad ways, from modernizing information and data-collection practices to establishing more scholarships and services for youth who are aging out of the foster care system.
The EO also condemns policies adopted by states and localities that “discourage or prohibit qualified families from serving children in need … because of their sincerely-held religious beliefs or adherence to basic biological truths.” And it directs the Health and Human Services Department to “take appropriate action” in response, including evaluating states’ partnerships with nongovernmental organizations, including faith-based ones.
“We have every reason for confidence that there will be robust action by the executive branch to ensure that faith-motivated organizations and families are fully welcomed into child welfare programs by states and counties,” said Jedd Medefind, president of the Christian Alliance for Orphans, which represents 300 organizations focused on children and families. Medefind also formerly led the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives during George W. Bush’s administration.
American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Naomi Schaefer Riley wrote in an analysis that parts of the order are “long overdue.”
“Not only did the last administration encourage this kind of unlawful discrimination, but states continue to act in unconstitutional ways, keeping great foster parents from serving because they will not, say, support hormone therapies or surgery for kids who think they have been born into the wrong bodies,” Riley wrote.
In 2023 under the Biden administration, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed a rule change related to the placement of foster children who identify as LGBTQ. It called for LGBTQ foster children to be placed in homes “free from hostility” or “discrimination” and required prospective foster and adoptive parents to affirm a child’s gender identity. This rule change gave the green light to states to adopt policies limiting who could serve as foster or adoptive parents.
ADF senior counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse told Christianity Today it’s not yet entirely clear how states will respond to Trump’s EO, which calls for the reverse posture, but ADF intends to press forward with the legal challenges regardless.
“The state has every incentive, especially when their operations are being funded by federal funds, to comply with federal law and at the same time not to put politics above children’s best interests,” Widmalm-Delphonse said.
A 2022 study from Child Trends found that 57 percent of funding for child welfare came from state and local sources. Around 43 percent came from the federal government. The largest source of federal child welfare funding came from Title IV-E of the Social Security Act, while Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the Social Services Block Grant program also made up a portion of federal aid. The federal funds, in addition to providing for a child’s general health and well-being, also provide financial support to caregivers, foster parents, group homes, or grandparents and other relatives caring for foster children.
Widmalm-Delphonse said many states are facing shortages of licensed homes, to the point where they have, at times, housed children in undesirable and unlicensed temporary placements, such as hotels and hospitals. Some states have made efforts to reduce these kinds of placements, but decreasing the number of families has only added to these challenges.
“I don’t think you have to agree with our clients’ Christian beliefs to see that these types of exclusionary policies are not in children’s best interest,” he added.
As of 2024, nearly 330,000 children were in the foster care system, while some estimates say there are less than 200,000 licensed foster homes. Around 20,000 students age out of foster care each year, according to the Department of Education.
Barna Research found in 2024 that practicing Christians are twice as likely to foster and adopt when compared with the general population and that 65 percent of foster parents say they attend church services weekly.
Herbie Newell, president and executive director of Lifeline Children’s Services, a Christian nonprofit that focuses on adoption, orphan care, and foster care, said the order simply allows Christian families to fully participate alongside everyone else: “It doesn’t bar anyone. It just simply protects. It protects Christian foster families, Christian foster agencies, and Christian adoption agencies from being able to live out their closely held religious beliefs and their statements of faith.”
In its 2021 case Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the city of Philadelphia could not bar Catholic Social Services from placing children in foster homes due to its policy of working only with married heterosexual couples.
The court issued a narrow decision holding that the agency did not fall under the purview of public accommodations laws and that Philadelphia’s antidiscrimination law burdened the Catholic agency.
The Supreme Court has not yet currently weighed in on whether religious families can be prevented from fostering due to their views on gender and sexuality.
Widmalm-Delphonse with ADF said he views Fulton as “the blueprint that lower courts should follow to make sure they respect the religious liberties of foster parents as well.”
Newell said that, while he celebrated the news as a good first step by the administration, the relief it may provide will be only temporary, as an executive order could be reversed by a subsequent administration with different views.
Newell said he trusts that Christians will find ways to care for vulnerable children regardless of whether the federal government encourages or discourages participation.
“We don’t need an executive order to have a mandate to care for orphans and vulnerable children,” Newell said. “No matter what the government does to try to bar us or include us, we’ve got a mandate from the Lord.”
