Recent data reveal that most Americans love and cherish their First Amendment rights — and wish the same for others.
In another wake-up call to progressives, recent data reveal that most Americans love and cherish their First Amendment rights — and wish the same for others.
In 2022, Mike and Kitty Burke applied to the Massachusetts state foster-care program after they discovered they were unable to have children of their own. A loving couple, the Burkes passed smoothly through 30 hours of interviews and tests from the Department of Children and Families (DCF). According to legal documents, the DCF “acknowledged” the “family[’s] strengths, this including their willingness to parent a child w/ moderately significant medical, mental health and behavioral needs.” One interviewer praised how they “really seem[] to understand adoption/foster care.”
After all their assessments, the Burkes received a call. Their application had been rejected. The problem? Their Catholic faith.
The DCF denied the Burkes their last opportunity to become parents, and gave only one reason: the Burkes “would not be affirming to a child who identified as LGBTQIA.”
“Kitty and Mike are devoutly Roman Catholic and not only attend church regularly, but they both also work for local churches as musicians,” the DCF wrote in a court filing obtained by National Review. “Their faith is not supportive and neither are they,” the filing continues.
During their application process, the DCF social worker who conducted multiple home interviews, Linda-Jeanne Mack, began to fixate on the couple’s Catholicism. Mack “directly asked Kitty if she would throw a child out of the home or send a child to conversion therapy,” the filing notes. “Kitty said she would never throw a child out who is LGBTQIA+ and would not use what [Mack] described conversion therapy to be.”
In another interview, Mike had to explain to Mack that “Catholics do not hate lesbians or gay people.” He continued, “it is the act that they have an issue with because they look at marriage as between a woman and a man and that sex is an act of marriage.” Moreover, “he would likely attend his child’s wedding if they married someone of the same sex regardless of his beliefs.”
The Becket Fund, a legal group that advocates for religious liberties, took up the couples’ case. In 2023, with the assistance of Becket, the Burkes sued the state before the U.S. district court for the District of Massachusetts.
Lori Windham, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, told National Review, “Heroic foster parents who provide loving homes to children shouldn’t be punished for their faith. Unfortunately, we’ve seen a disturbing pattern of state and local governments targeting loving, faithful couples over their religious beliefs. It is heartening to see that the American people overwhelmingly reject this bullying and religious discrimination.”
Becket surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,000 American adults regarding the Burke’s case. The survey screened a sample that is representative by gender, age, ethnicity/race, and region according to U.S. Census figures.
As published in their Religious Freedom Index, only 19 percent of respondents supported Massachusetts’s decision to deny “an otherwise qualified Catholic couple from being foster parents because the couple holds traditional Catholic beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity.”
Sixty-seven percent of respondents thought “that Massachusetts was wrong” to deny the Burkes a foster license “because the state has a shortage of foster parents and the state should have worked with the Catholic couple to determine which foster children might be the best fit for their home.”
Neither foster parents — nor foster children — should be punished for the prejudices of a few social workers. The state of Massachusetts is neck-deep in a foster-care crisis. According to a local news outlet, children in state custody, “are spending nights in rented spaces with social workers sitting watch.” A veteran social worker has called it a crisis for the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. Massachusetts has been renting out apartments, rooms, and even hospital beds for so-called “child sitting” — where foster children have spent days, weeks, and sometimes even months because there aren’t enough foster homes for them.
Ethel Everett, a longtime social worker, told local news, “It would be an ideal world where we would have foster families waiting for kids instead of kids waiting for foster families, and we’re not at that point.” “What’s been happening is not working,” she continued. “Kids are being traumatized, social workers are experiencing secondary trauma, and I think the placement crisis is real.”
Kitty Burke said in an interview, “At the end of the day what this whole thing means is — by the state denying us — the state is really punishing children. They are denying children the right to a family.”
The State of Massachusetts has denied the Burkes — and countless foster children — the right to a family due to religious discrimination. Americans will not stand for it.