Bates, who is receiving pro bono legal representation from Alliance Defending Freedom, argued in her lawsuit that this requirement infringes on her First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion.
“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,” ADF Senior Counsel Jonathan Scruggs said in a statement.
“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 said.
Bates has been raising her five biological children on her own since her husband died in a car collision, according to the lawsuit. She felt motivated to adopt children after “listening to a Christian broadcast about a man who adopted a child from foster care” and she “desires to replicate what God has done for her by opening her home to two children who need a family that they can call their own,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that Bates wants to adopt a pair of siblings who are under the age of 10 because her youngest child is 10 years old. It adds that “she hopes that by adopting two children, each child will be less likely to feel alone or isolated.” The lawsuit also cites verses from the Bible, which call on the faithful to care for orphans.
According to the lawsuit, this DHS regulation violates Bates’ First Amendment right to free speech because it restricts what she would tell an adoptive child. Her lawyers argue that “sharing her faith with her children” and “refrain[ing] from certain speech like neopronouns” is protected speech, under the First Amendment.
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