The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Seattle ruled July 24 that an Oregon mother may resume the process of adopting children from foster care without violating her religious beliefs about human sexuality while her lawsuit against state officials continues.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Jessica Bates filed a lawsuit in April 2023 challenging an Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) rule that categorically excluded her from adopting any child—no matter their age or beliefs—because she would not affirm the state’s gender ideology requirements.

Bates is a single mother of five biological children whose husband died in a car accident in 2017. She applied for certification to adopt from foster care in 2022. During her certification process, she attended a training class and was provided material on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression (SOGIE).

Under ODHS policy, foster parents are required to accept and affirm a child’s perceived gender identity through using their preferred pronouns, providing clothing that matches their self-proclaimed identity and taking them to events such as LGBTQ pride parades. Additionally, parents are prohibited from requiring foster children to attend events, including religious activities, that are “unsupportive of people with diverse SOGIE.”

In January, a coalition of foster and adoptive parents, religious liberty groups, free speech and family advocates, de-transitioners and 20 state governments filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the 9th Circuit in support of Bates.

The briefs joined ADF in arguing that ODHS’s policy needlessly penalizes Bates and many other people of faith for their religious views, compels parents to speak words that violate their conscience, and deprives children in need of the opportunity to find loving homes.

Bates asked the 9th Circuit to lift the state’s gender-ideology exclusion and allow her to re-apply to adopt, free of discrimination, while her lawsuit continues. The court ordered ODHS to reconsider Bates’ application because she will likely succeed in showing that Oregon’s exclusion violates the First Amendment.

“Every child deserves a loving home, and children suffer when the government excludes people of faith from the adoption and foster system,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Litigation Strategy Jonathan Scruggs, who argued before the court on behalf of Bates.

“Jessica is a caring mom of five who is now free to adopt after Oregon officials excluded her because of her commonsense belief that a girl cannot become a boy or vice versa. Because caregivers like Jessica cannot promote Oregon’s dangerous gender ideology to young kids and take them to events like pride parades, the state considers them to be unfit parents. That is false and incredibly dangerous, needlessly depriving kids of opportunities to find a loving home. The 9th Circuit was right to remind Oregon that the foster and adoption system is supposed to serve the best interests of children, not the state’s ideological crusade.”

The 9th Circuit wrote in its ruling in Bates v. Pakseresht: “No one thinks, for example, that a state could exclude parents from adopting foster children based on those parents’ political views, race, or religious affiliations. Adoption is not a constitutional law dead zone. And a state’s general conception of the child’s best interest does not create a force field against the valid operation of other constitutional rights.”

Photo: Alliance Defending Freedom