A new federal lawsuit is challenging the open and blatant anti-Christian discrimination that is built into one state’s adoption policy.
A report from the Alliance Defending Freedom explains it is in court on behalf of Jessica Bates, a single mother of five wishing to adopt siblings from the state’s foster care program.
Officials in her state of Oregon have rejected her application to be certified to adopt because, according to the state Department of Human Services, she failed to swear that she would “respect, accept, and support … the sexual orientation, gender identity, [and] gender expression” of any child that would be placed in her care.
Bates could not agree to this because of her faith, the ADF reported.
“Oregon’s policy amounts to an ideological litmus test: people who hold secular or ‘progressive’ views on sexual orientation and gender identity are eligible to participate in child welfare programs, while people of faith with religiously informed views are disqualified because they don’t agree with the state’s orthodoxy,” explained Jonathan Scruggs, of the ADF.
“The government can’t exclude certain communities of faith from foster care and adoption services because the state doesn’t like their particular religious beliefs,” he noted.
Defendants in the case are Fariborz Pakseresht, of the Oregon DHS, Liesl Wendt, also of that state agency, and others.
Inspired by the story of someone else who adopted, “Jessica decided to adopt even though she is raising five children of her own after a car collision tragically killed her husband,” the ADF said.
“Unfortunately for Jessica, she lives in a state where officials look down on those with traditional religious beliefs about human sexuality…”
It added, “Jessica believes out our biological sex carries spiritual significance for who we are and how we should act. Jessica cannot affirm that a male is or should try to be female or vice versa…”
She told the state she will “gladly love and accept any child for who they are, but she cannot say or do anything against her Christian faith.”
That triggered the state’s official discrimination against Christianity, the case charges.
“Oregon’s policy makes a sweeping claim that all persons who hold certain religious beliefs—beliefs held by millions of Americans from diverse religious faiths—are categorically unfit to care for children,” said Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse of the ADF. “That’s simply not true. Oregon is putting its political agenda above the needs of countless children who would be happy to grow up in a loving, Christian home like Jessica’s. We urge the court to remind the state of its constitutional and moral obligations and reaffirm Jessica’s First Amendment right to live out her faith without being penalized by the government.”
This article was originally published by the WND News Center.
This post originally appeared on WND News Center.