A Christian mother is suing the state of Oregon over its alleged refusal to allow her to adopt children over her conservative views on gender.
Jessica Bates, a mother of five who lost her husband, wanted to adopt another child. She saw it as her Christian duty. Her request was rejected, however, because she refused to comply with a stipulation demanding that adopting parents “respect, accept and support … the sexual orientation, gender identity, [and] gender expression” of children, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom. The ADF is representing Bates in the case Bates v. Pakseresht.
The group filed the lawsuit on her behalf, claiming the state is violating her First Amendment rights.
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“I reported to my certifier because they really emphasized the sexual orientation and gender identity training, that you have to support it,” Bates said in an interview with Fox News.
“I emailed her and told her I couldn’t do that because of my faith, and then we had a phone call, and because I wouldn’t take a child for cross-sex hormone injections, I was basically told that I’m ineligible to adopt in the state of Oregon,” she said.
Bates claimed in the lawsuit that compulsive training meetings with Oregon’s Resource and Adoptive Family Training, or RAFT, urged potential parents to “use a child’s preferred pronouns, take a child to affirming events like Pride parades, or sign the child up for dangerous pharmaceutical interventions like puberty blockers and hormone shots.”
ADF senior counsel Jonathan Scruggs described RAFT’s policy as an “ideological litmus test.”
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“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,” he said. “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.”
ADF describes itself as “an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.”
