Last Thursday, President Trump signed an Executive Order that was organized by First Lady Melania Trump entitled ‘Fostering the Future for American Children and Families.’ The order directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to take action to create new educational and employment pathways for youth transitioning out of foster care.
These provisions are excellent steps, but we were especially grateful to read Section 4 of the Order, which states that the Secretary of HHS shall ‘take appropriate action to address State and local policies and practices’ that prevent families from participating in foster care ‘based upon their sincerely-held religious beliefs or moral convictions.’ In other words, the Order puts the full weight of the federal government behind foster parents of faith who are being discriminated against in states like Massachusetts just because of their convictions on issues like gender and sexuality. States could lose substantial federal funding for continuing to engage in such discrimination.
Our clients, Lydia and Heath Marvin, were honored to be invited to the White House by the President to attend this momentous event.
Their story about how they lost their foster license because of their Christian beliefs, and how we are helping them to fight back, has made national headlines. Hear them talk about this in their own words on Fox with an attorney from our national partner, Alliance Defending Freedom, here:
President Trump’s executive order is an excellent first step toward completely rooting out anti-religious discrimination in the American foster care system. While we don’t yet know all of the particulars of how the federal government will accomplish this mission, we know that the tide is turning against this bigotry. And the voices of faithful Christian families like the Marvins have been at the forefront of this movement.
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