Couples Sues Massachusetts for Threatening to Revoke Foster Care License Because They’re Christians

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of two Massachusetts families after the commonwealth told them that they are no longer eligible to continue serving as foster parents because of their religious beliefs.

Even though the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families is desperately in need of foster families, it now requires every family to promise that they will encourage a child to “transition” socially and medically, use a child’s chosen pronouns, and otherwise “affirm” without question a child’s desire to change their gender, even if doing so violates their faith.

DCF’s policy applies categorically to all families, regardless of whether the family has ever cared for a child who identifies as LGBT. It excludes loving families who disagree, even if the family cares only for infants or close family members or provides respite care—caring for a child for a few hours or days at a time. DCF’s policy violates the First Amendment by conditioning foster-care licenses on parents’ willingness to renounce their religious beliefs in both speech and practice to provide a loving home for vulnerable children.

“Massachusetts’ foster care system is in crisis: The commonwealth has more than 1,400 children who are waiting to be placed with a loving family. Yet Massachusetts is putting its ideological agenda ahead of the needs of these suffering kids,” said ADF Senior Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse. “This is a particularly egregious case because the Joneses care for a little girl who is happy and healthy in the only home she’s ever known. Now just because of the Joneses’ commonly held religious beliefs, the commonwealth says the Joneses are unfit to parent and is threatening to uproot this little child. That’s not putting children first and that’s why we’re suing the commonwealth in federal court.”

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Nick and Audrey Jones are Christians and have been a licensed foster family since 2023, providing care to seven children under the age of six. The Joneses currently care for a 17-month-old foster child who has lived with them since she was close to two months old. The Joneses provided a loving and caring home and, until recently, DCF agreed that it was in the child’s best interests to be placed there. Now, DCF intends to revoke the Joneses’ foster-care license solely because of their religious beliefs about gender-identity topics and also remove the toddler from their home.

Motivated by their Christian faith and biblical teaching to care for orphans and widows, Greg and Marianelly Schrock have provided a loving and supportive home for 28 different foster kids since 2019. Yet in June of this year, Massachusetts discontinued the Schrocks’ foster-care license because of their religious beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity.

Both families will happily provide a loving and respectful home for any child, including those who identify as LGBT. Massachusetts officials nonetheless are demanding foster parents sign a document promising to automatically “promote,” “support” and “affirm” a hypothetical child’s gender identity or gender expression, even if doing so violates their religious convictions.

ADF attorneys filed the lawsuit, Jones v. Mahaniah, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Sam Whiting of the Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center is serving as local counsel for the Joneses and the Schrocks, and Andrew Nussbaum and James Compton of First & Fourteenth PLLC are serving as co-counsel in the case.

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