A Christian couple who had fostered vulnerable children in the US state of Washington for nine years have filed a federal lawsuit against the state after their licence to be foster carers was withdrawn on the grounds of their stated refusal to relate to children on the basis of preferred gender identity rather than actual biological sex.
Shane and Jennifer DeGross were told in 2022 that the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) had implemented new regulations requiring carers to call foster children by their preferred gender pronouns and take them to specific cultural events such as Gay Pride parades.
The DeGrosses told the DCYF they were requesting the renewal of their foster-care licence because they would “love and support any child who is placed in their home.” However, the couple said they could not adopt the language and behaviours the Department required because this was contrary to their faith. The DCYF denied the couple’s request for an exemption, and refused to renew their licence.
Their attorneys from Christian legal advocates Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) recently filed the lawsuit against state officials who refused to renew the couple’s foster-care licence “because of their common-sense and religiously inspired view that people can’t change their sex.”
The DeGrosses told their foster care licensing agency that they would love and support any child placed in their home, but could not lie to a child about who they are or encourage a child to reject their sex. The agency made more than one attempt to appeal the denial without success.
“Washington state officials are putting their own ideological agenda ahead of children who just need a loving home. Despite the DeGrosses’ faithful service as foster parents for nine years, the state disqualified them simply for having views that Washington does not like,” said ADF Legal Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse.
“As a federal court has already affirmed in another case this exclusion is unconstitutional—religious beliefs about human sexuality are not a legitimate or constitutional reason to categorically bar citizens from helping children. Washington is putting families like the DeGrosses to an impossible choice: speak against your faith and lie or give up the opportunity to care for hurting children. That is illegal and wrong,” the attorney asserted.
The ADF wrote in a statement that: “Inspired by the Biblical command to care for widows and orphans, the DeGrosses served as loving foster parents to several children for just over nine years. They cared for four children, including two young girls whom they cared for for eighteen months and two years respectively. When they sought to renew their licence the DeGrosses hoped to serve as respite care providers —those who can act as a stop-gap for children without a stable home. In its appeal to the state, their licensing agency said Shane and Jennifer have a heart for serving children in their community and their faithful ministry to children in Washington has been a blessing.”
The ADF noted that from 2017 to 2021, Washington state’s foster-care system served over 10,000 children annually, but due to a critical shortage of foster parents children have had to sleep in hotels and, in some cases, the cars of case workers. An audit of Washington’s foster-care system revealed that these “emergency placements” are “traumatic experiences for [foster] children,” but the state continues to turn away potential foster parents because of their Biblical worldview.
In the case that the DeGrosses are using as a precedent to prove that the state’s refusal to grant them a foster-care licence is discriminatory and illegal, a couple sued the DCYS after it denied them the right to care for their great-granddaughter because they would not “support hormone therapy” for a hypothetical child suffering from gender dysphoria or otherwise speak or act against their sincerely held Christian beliefs.
A Washington federal district court ruled that the Department cannot bar caregivers from foster care solely because of their beliefs about human sexuality. In a similar case to that of the DeGrosses, ADF attorneys are representing a mother-of-five in a lawsuit against the neighbouring state of Oregon for denying her application to be a foster parent because of her religious beliefs.
Photo: Alliance Defending Freedom
