Chris Lange, FISM News
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Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Monday against Oregon state officials on behalf of a woman whose adoption application was rejected due to her Christian beliefs.
The Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) denied Jessica Bates’s application to adopt a sibling pair from the state’s foster care system because she would not agree to its policy to “respect, accept, and support … the sexual orientation, gender identity, [and] gender expression” of any potential adoptee. The widowed mother of five said that she would provide a loving home for any child she adopted but could not accept the condition due to her deeply-held religious beliefs.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) accused the DHS of placing progressive ideology ahead of the well-being of children in the foster care system.
“Oregon’s policy amounts to an ideological litmus test: people who hold secular or ‘progressive’ views on sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to participate in child welfare programs, while people of faith with religiously informed views are disqualified because they don’t agree with the state’s orthodoxy,” ADF Senior Counsel Jonathan Scruggs, director of the conservative legal nonprofit’s Center for Conscience Initiatives, said in a press release announcing the lawsuit.
“The government can’t exclude certain communities of faith from foster care and adoption services because the state doesn’t like their particular religious beliefs,” Scruggs continued.
ADF said that the ODHS requirement would force Bates to agree to use preferred pronouns and facilitate any future medical interventions to alter the child’s biological sex in direct opposition to scriptural teachings.
“As such, ODHS’s policy penalizes Bates for her religious views, compels her to speak words that violate her beliefs, and deprives her of equal protection of the law because of her faith,” it said.
As conveyed by the press release, Bates felt led by the Lord to provide a loving and permanent home for children in the foster care system. According to the lawsuit, Bates was inspired by a news story about a man who had adopted, which placed on her heart God’s “command ‘to visit orphans and widows in their affliction’” found in James 1:27. Bates had elected to adopt a sibling pair because they are typically harder to place than an individual child.
“Oregon’s policy makes a sweeping claim that all persons who hold certain religious beliefs — beliefs held by millions of Americans from diverse religious faiths — are categorically unfit to care for children,” ADF Legal Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse was quoted as saying in the release. “That’s simply not true. Oregon is putting its political agenda above the needs of countless children who would be happy to grow up in a loving, Christian home like Jessica’s. We urge the court to remind the state of its constitutional and moral obligations and reaffirm Jessica’s First Amendment right to live out her faith without being penalized by the government.”
The Oregon Department of Human Services’ website invites “single, married, or domestic partners” to adopt. It further states that “applicants are considered regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.”