Children in the foster care system need homes, but Washington state will not place them with couples who oppose the government’s “transgender” agenda.
Despite a shortage of foster homes, the government would rather children sleep “on cots in child-welfare offices” than in beds in safe, comfortable, and caring Christian homes.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) represents a Christian couple who were denied a foster care licence because they refuse to lie to children or affirm their fantasies about being the opposite sex. Indulging children this way is not healthy or safe.
Government bureaucrats in the state couldn’t care less. But they may have to care after this federal court ruling.
ADF filed a lawsuit on the couple’s behalf, and state officials moved to dismiss all the couple’s claims. The court granted the motion on certain claims, like the one against Ross Hunter, secretary of the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families, personally, but upheld their freedom of speech claim.
“The DeGrosses have carried their burden to show that the Department’s enforcement of Policy § 1520 plausibly constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination,” the court wrote (PDF). “Thus, the DeGrosses alleged sufficient facts to show a First Amendment violation unless the government can satisfy strict scrutiny.”
Strict scrutiny is a tough standard to satisfy.
Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse, senior counsel at ADF, said the state “is putting its own ideological agenda ahead of children’s needs, even though a federal court already enjoined a similarly unconstitutional policy in 2021. Washington should take the hint: it needs to end its unconstitutional and discriminatory policy.”
We’ll keep you posted on this case and other foster care cases pending.
