Oregon passed a law forcing any parents interested in adopting a child to “respect, accept, and support” the child’s claims of “transgender” or other LGBT identities as a prerequisite to becoming an adoptive parent.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday, however, that such a requirement violates the First Amendment, allowing prospective adoptive mother Jessica Bates, who sued the state with an Alliance Defending Freedom legal team, to proceed to adopting siblings from foster care.
Bates sued Oregon in 2023 after she was categorically denied the ability to adopt children in the state because she refused to “lie to children and tell them that girls can be boys and vice versa” and “could not agree to use inaccurate pronouns to refer to a child or to take children to pride parades,” ADF stated.
“Every child deserves a loving home, and children suffer when the government excludes people of faith from the adoption and foster system. Jessica is a caring mom of five who is now free to adopt after Oregon officials excluded her because of her common-sense belief that a girl cannot become a boy or vice versa,” ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Litigation Strategy Jonathan Scruggs, who represented Bates in court, said in a statement.
“Because caregivers like Jessica cannot promote Oregon’s dangerous gender ideology to young kids and take them to events like pride parades, the state considers them to be unfit parents. That is false and incredibly dangerous, needlessly depriving kids of opportunities to find a loving home. The 9th Circuit was right to remind Oregon that the foster and adoption system is supposed to serve the best interests of children, not the state’s ideological crusade.”
The 2-1 decision was written by Judge Daniel Bress, a Trump appointee, and joined by Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, a Clinton appointee. The sole dissenter was Judge Richard Clifton, an appointee of George W. Bush.
The court ruled that both Bates’ free speech and free exercise of religion claims were burdened by Oregon’s law, because “Oregon’s policy both restricts and compels speech based on content and viewpoint in the areas of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression” and “burdens Bates’s religious exercise and is neither neutral nor generally applicable.”
“Fundamental as basic freedoms, these rights spring from a common constitutional principle: that the government may not insist upon our adherence to state-favored orthodoxies, whether of a religious or political variety,” Bress wrote.
The law directed parents to indoctrination courses, where the state’s expectations were laid out, including the condition that parents must “support through your words” the claimed gender identity or sexual orientation of a child. It laid out several different made-up potential pronoun types like “Ze” and “Hir/Zir,” but noted that those are not the only ones and that there are an “infinite number” of potential pronouns.
The guidance from the state also asks parents to essentially groom their children into assuming some kind of “transgender” identity or sexual orientation, stating that “whether or not a youth in your care openly identifies as LGBTQ+,” parents should nonetheless peddle propaganda in their homes, “[d]isplay[ing] ‘hate-free zone’ signs or other symbols indicating an LGBTQ-affirming environment (e.g., pink triangle, rainbow, or ally flag)” (bold in original). The guidance also mandates “‘[p]rovid[ing] access to a variety of books, movies, and materials, including those that positively represent same-gender relationships,’ while ‘[p]oint[ing] out LGBTQ+ celebrities, role models who stand up for the LGBTQ+ community, and people who demonstrate bravery in the face of social stigma.’”
Beyond the open grooming, the guidance also effectively says any serious religious activity cannot be tolerated, because any religious activity that is “openly hostile or unsupportive” of children who make these claims is not allowed. Bizarrely, as though the state of Oregon could invent its own religious doctrine, the guidance further states, “You do not have to choose between your faith and supporting their LGBTQ+ identity” (bold in original). It then suggests that parents simply leave their religion behind for another one that openly supports deviant sexual orientations.
“No one thinks, for example, that a state could exclude parents from adopting foster children based on those parents’ political views, race, or religious affiliations,” Bress wrote. “Adoption is not a constitutional law dead zone. And a state’s general conception of the child’s best interest does not create a force field against the valid operation of other constitutional rights.”
Breccan F. Thies is a correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.
