pjmedia.com
Today is Good Friday, but for one mother, it’s not so good. A Christian mother was recently told by the state of Oregon that she could not adopt, because her religious beliefs prevent her from endorsing LGBTQ ideology.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) announced April 3 that its attorneys had filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Jessica Bates, a widowed mother of five who wanted “to adopt siblings from foster care.” Unfortunately for Bates, Oregon demands prospective adoptive parents “respect, accept, and support … the sexual orientation, gender identity, [and] gender expression” of any kid. In other words, unless you agree that boys can wear dresses and girls can get double mastectomies if they feel male, you can’t adopt children in Oregon. That excludes any Christians who stick to the Bible and traditional teaching.
So the Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS), which administers state child welfare programs, denied Bates’s application. She had told ODHS that, while she would “love and accept” any child, she could not agree to do something contradicting her Christian faith. And in the United States of America, founded as a Christian nation, that has become unacceptable. ODHS policy, according to ADF, requires that parents “use a child’s preferred pronouns, take a child to affirming events like Pride parades, or facilitate a child’s access to dangerous pharmaceutical interventions like puberty blockers and hormone shots if the child so requests.” ADF says that not only punishes Bates for her faith, but forces her to use words against her beliefs. Oregon has also used Bates’s faith as pretext to deny her equal protection of the law, ADF added.
