Despite the Supreme Court’s clear message, states like Vermont and California still insist on excluding people of faith from becoming foster or adoptive parents. And foster children are paying the ultimate cost. By prohibiting Christians and other families of faith from fostering or adopting children, many children will go through foster care—and in some instances, their entire youth—without a caring and loving home.

On any given day, nearly 400,000 children are living in some form of foster care in the United States. This creates a desperate need for altruistic individuals to open their homes and hearts to care for children in foster care. But despite this need, some states attempt to completely cut out a large group of would-be foster and adoptive parents from serving in this role based solely on the parents’ religious beliefs.

Several states effectively prohibit Christian families from fostering or adopting by requiring potential foster parents to agree to affirm a child’s gender identity, regardless of the child’s biological sex, even in direct contradiction of that family’s sincerely held religious beliefs.

In Vermont, where the state has more children in need than families willing to care for them, two families had their foster care licenses revoked because of their religious beliefs regarding gender. In response, they filed a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s licensing scheme as unconstitutional.

California has already passed a law that conditions becoming a foster parent on the applicant’s willingness to affirm a foster child’s chosen gender identity or sexual orientation.

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