A new executive order signed by President Donald Trump seeks to combat “ridiculous woke policies that discriminate against Christians and families of faith” seeking to serve as foster parents.
Trump signed an executive order Thursday titled “Fostering the Future for American Children and Families.” The executive order laments that “Some jurisdictions and organizations maintain policies that discourage or prohibit qualified families from serving children in need as foster and adoptive parents because of their sincerely-held religious beliefs or adherence to basic biological truths.”
Trump ordered Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “publish annually a scorecard that measures and is used to evaluate State-level achievement of key outcomes and metrics that reduce unnecessary entries into foster care” that evaluates states’ “partnerships and collaboration with appropriate non-governmental allies, including faith-based organizations” as well as several other factors.
The executive order also directs Kennedy, along with the director of the White House Faith Office and the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, to “take appropriate action to address State and local policies and practices that inappropriately prohibit participation in federally-funded child-welfare programs by qualified individuals or organizations based upon their sincerely-held religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
Another stated goal of the executive order is to “increase partnerships between agencies and faith-based organizations and houses of worship to serve families whose children have been placed in foster care or are at risk of being placed in foster care.”
The president, along with first lady Melania Trump, provided additional details about the “Fostering the Future” initiative during a White House signing ceremony. In his remarks, Trump elaborated on the role of faith-based foster care providers and efforts to target them.
“Faith-based nonprofits are the nation’s most trusted institutions, interacting with the foster care system,” he said. “Yet radical Left policies in states nationwide make it much harder, not easier, for those families to open up their homes. But we’re working on that. We’re dealing with the radical Left. It’s not easy, but we’re winning and we’re winning big. That’s why, with the order that we’re doing today, we’re taking [on] the ridiculous woke policies that discriminate against Christians and families of faith.”
While Trump did not share specific examples of states targeting faith-based foster care providers, numerous families seeking to raise foster children in their homes have faced pushback from the states they reside in.
Last year, Melinda Antenucci and Casey Mathieu filed a lawsuit in federal court against several employees at the Vermont Department of Children and Families after the state revoked their license to serve as foster parents because Antenucci shared a Facebook post in support of requiring parental notification if a child expresses confusion about their sex and begins to self-identify as a member of the opposite sex at school and repeatedly shared reservations about fostering a trans-identifying child, if they were ever asked to do so.
The couple received a letter informing them that because of their refusal to “foster a transgender child” and “discuss they/them pronouns” with a hypothetical foster child, “[the department does not] know how [it] can move forward with fostering given the inability to predict any foster child’s journey with their own identity.” When the couple declined to give up their license to serve as foster parents voluntarily, the state revoked their license.
While the state views the comments as a violation of a state law, declaring that “All foster parents are prohibited from engaging in any form of discrimination against a foster child based on” sexual orientation and gender identity, the lawsuit contends that the state violated the couple’s rights under the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution by forcing them to engage in compelled speech and expressing hostility toward their deeply held religious beliefs.
In 2023, a Massachusetts couple, Michael and Catherine Burke, who identify as devout Catholics, filed a lawsuit against several Massachusetts officials because the state denied their request to foster a child because they “would not be affirming to a child who identified as LGBTQIA.”
The complaint characterized the state’s actions as being in contradiction with policies implemented by the Massachusetts Department of Children & Families, as well as the Massachusetts Foster Parent Bill of Rights, prohibiting “religious discrimination against potential foster parents.”
Actions taken by Vermont and Massachusetts to prevent couples and organizations with deeply held religious beliefs about gender and sexuality from providing foster care come after the U.S. Supreme court unanimously ruled in the 2021 case Fulton v. City of Philadelphia that the city of Philadelphia could not refuse to contract with Catholic Social Services of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia because of its faith-based opposition to placing children with same-sex couples.
“Government fails to act neutrally when it proceeds in a manner intolerant of religious beliefs or restricts practices because of their religious nature,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the Fulton opinion. “The refusal of Philadelphia to contract with CSS for the provision of foster care services unless it agrees to certify same-sex couples as foster parents cannot survive strict scrutiny, and violates the First Amendment.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
