WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at “modernizing” the child welfare system in the United States, including a guarantee to side with foster families discriminated against by states for their religious convictions.
The order directs the Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS) to “update applicable regulations, policies, and practices to improve the collection, publication, utility, and transparency of State-level child-welfare data” for more accurate measuring of results and more timely addressing of issues; creates a “Fostering the Future” initiative to support the education and career prospects of those transferring out of the foster system; and increase partnerships between foster agencies and faith-based organizations.
It also directs the federal government 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.”
Joining the president at the White House for the signing were Lydia and Health Marvin, a Christian foster couple from Massachusetts who have fostered eight kids under age four since 2020, but lost their license in April solely because they refused to sign an agreement to “affirm” the “LGBTQIA+” status of any children placed in their care. The Trump administration’s Andrew Gradison, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, previously warned Massachusetts that its “policies and developments are deeply troubling, clearly contrary to the purpose of child welfare programs, and in direct violation of First Amendment protections.”
Heath and Lydia Marvin lost their license to foster children because of a discriminatory, anti-Christian law in Massachusetts.
Today, @realDonaldTrump signed the Fostering The Future executive order. This order directs the federal government to work with state governments to… pic.twitter.com/6xZ9UEzjFZ
— Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal) November 13, 2025
“Our nation’s foster care system is in crisis: Vulnerable children are being placed in hospitals, police stations, and institutions to help fill the gap. As numerous states have attested, religious families play a critical role in the foster-care system. Yet instead of inviting these loving parents from diverse backgrounds to help care for kids, government officials are shutting the door on them because of their commonly held religious beliefs, putting their ideological agenda ahead of the needs of suffering kids,” Alliance Defending Freedom CEO Kristen Waggoner said in support of the move. “We applaud the Trump administration for taking important steps to protect the constitutional rights of religious foster parents, open the doors to more qualified and loving families, and ensure that children have every opportunity to thrive and achieve success. We eagerly join the president’s efforts on behalf of every precious child in the foster care system.”
A large body of evidence shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them, or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically-transformative, and often-irreversible surgical and chemical procedures.
Studies find that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
The Trump order is a stark contrast to the actions of the Biden administration, which one month before the 2024 election proposed a rule that would have declared that a “provider who attempted to undermine, suppress, or change the sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression of a child, including through the use of so-called ‘conversion therapy’ would not be a safe and appropriate placement for a child.” If Democrats had retained the White House, that rule would have gone into effect in October 2026.
