Montana became the 25th state to join President Trump’s “A Home for Every Child” executive order initiative Monday. The $11.4 billion project under the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) aims to address the national foster parent shortage, partly by creating opportunities for religious Americans the Biden administration blocked due to pro-queer policies. First Lady Melania Trump has made helping foster children one of her top philanthropic priorities.
The ACF reports that “for every 100 children entering foster care, only 57 licensed foster homes are available nationwide.” The ACF seeks to achieve a 1:1 foster home-to-foster-child ratio in every state. Along with “streamlining foster family licensing” and “supporting kinship caregivers,” central to the program’s success is “encouraging faith-based partnerships to expand the network of caring families.”
The Trump administration’s welcome to religious homes reverses Biden-era foster rules that discriminated against Americans who observe traditional religions, such as Christianity, that support natural marriage. Biden’s 2022 “Designated Placement Requirements Under Titles IV-E and IV-B for LGBTQI+ Children” rule required prospective foster homes to support a child’s gender confusion, including by helping administer dangerous, opposite-sex treatments.
Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families Alex Adams told The Federalist the number of foster homes has faced a yearly decrease because of this LGBT policy: “What the Biden administration rule did is it constricted the number of [foster] homes, because your most likely family to foster is a family of sincerely held beliefs and religious convictions.” The Who Cares Project estimates a drastic 19 percent drop in available foster homes between 2019 and 2025.
Anti-religious discrimination still persists in many states today, which may help account for the fact that largely Democrat-run states have so far declined to participate in the effort to find more foster parents for distressed children. Forty-two out of 50 states have laws and regulations concerning LGBT children that can prevent religious parents from fostering, according to a queer activist organization.
Two Christians living in Wisconsin told The Federalist they have experienced this. After Sarah (a pseudonym to protect her from state retaliation) endured a miscarriage a year ago, she and her husband decided to pursue fostering: “[God] encouraged me to channel my grief into something that was creative and beautiful, and that was parenting children harmed … by difficulty.” Sarah and her husband began the year-long process of earning a foster license, unaware of the discrimination they were about to face.
Sarah said she and her husband walked into their hour-long background interview with the county licensing program, excited to open their home to any child in need. The foster care official asked for her views on parenting LGBT children. Sarah recalled that she replied, “We’re going to tell them honestly what we think. We think their bodies are beautiful the way that they’re created, male or female.” She says the official replied, “Because you have conflicting views with an LGBT youth, we [will] not give you [LGBT] children.”
Because of Sarah and her husband’s Christianity, state officials then also marked their home as an unsafe place for children over the age of ten, once they hit puberty, because they will not encourage youth to have promiscuous sex or get transgender surgery. The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families did not return a request for comment.
Sarah hopes improvements under Trump’s “A Home for Every Child” initiative will eventually relieve Christians like her of unconstitutional government bigotry impeding their equal access to programs such as foster parenting. The ACF sent letters to all 50 states in March “reminding them that children may not be removed from their homes solely because parents decline to support a child’s self-identification as the opposite sex.” Adams said he hopes that the “A Home for Every Child” initiative will help more parents have the right to act according to their religious beliefs without the fear of losing their foster children.
On May 20, Washington state officials agreed to a permanent injunction protecting religious families’ rights to serve as foster parents without being forced to promote gender ideology. Long-time foster parents Shane and Jennifer DeGross sued state officials for discrimination after they were refused a full fostering license for “religious objections to socially ‘transitioning’ children that may be placed in their care.” The couple won after a federal district court ruled the state’s rule violated the First Amendment.
Following the ruling, Washington state revised its foster-care policy to “[not] attach any conditions or restrictions to the license solely because of [one’s] religious beliefs, including speech and actions pertaining to marriage, gender, or sexual relationships.” The DeGrosses have since re-applied for their fostering license.
Starting this fall, states that joined “A Home for Every Child” will also report their ratio of homes to foster children to the ACF. The ACF will use that data to suggest state policy changes.
Adams believes the second half of the country will join the initiative soon: “Once you get to that tipping point where more than half of all jurisdictions have joined, suddenly the other states feel like they’re missing out.” Adams reports he has already received a “flurry of outreach this week of both Republican and Democrat states telling us they intend to join.”
