Catholics living in Massachusetts who adhere to traditional Christian teachings about marriage and sexuality need not apply to foster homeless children in that state because officials there don’t approve of their beliefs.
With assistance from the Beckett public interest law firm that specializes in religious liberty issues, Mike and Kitty Burke are suing the State of Massachusetts and a dozen of its officials associated with the Department of Children and Families (DCF), filing suit in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts.
“As faithful Catholics, the Burkes believe that all children should be loved and supported, and they would never reject a child placed in their home. They also believe that children should not undergo procedures that attempt to change their God-given sex, and they uphold Catholic beliefs about marriage and sexuality,” the Burkes explain in their filing.
“Because of those decent and honorable beliefs, DCF decided the Burkes were not ‘affirming,’ and therefore prohibited from fostering any child in Massachusetts. As the author of their license study put it, while the Burkes are ‘lovely people,’ ‘their faith is not supportive and neither are they,'” the filing continues.
What the Burkes are not affirming is sending young children to money-hungry politicized consultants, doctors and surgeons willing to prescribe dangerous drugs and perform brutal surgeries that forever butcher the bodies of innocent boys and girls.
The Burkes were rejected despite the fact that Massachusetts desperately needs more parents willing to assume foster roles, a task that can often be emotionally, financially, and sometimes physically challenging in the extreme.
After months of interviews and training, and after years of heartbreak, we were on the verge of finally becoming parents,” the Burkes explained in a statement issued by Becket. “We were absolutely devastated to learn that Massachusetts would rather children sleep in the hallways of hospitals than let us welcome children in need into our home.
Imagine that, one of the deepest blue of blue states throwing the First Amendment out the window and condemning children desperate to receive the kind of love and guidance couples like the Burkes would love to provide to instead be homeless, institutionalized for long periods, and denied care and nurture.
Massachusetts officials would be well-advised to rethink their policy because, as the Burkes’ filing explains, the law of the land, as articulated quite recently by the highest court in the land, doesn’t permit such blatant religious discrimination:
The Supreme Court has already — unanimously — rejected the attempt to exclude Catholic foster care agencies from the child welfare system. Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021). And the Third Circuit held that the First Amendment prohibits retaliation against foster parents for sharing their religious beliefs on marriage. See Lasche v. New Jersey, No. 20-2325, 2022 WL 604025, at *4-7 (3d Cir. Mar. 1, 2022).
Exclusion of Catholic couples is equally unconstitutional. DCF’s religious discrimination means that any Massachusetts family with similar religious beliefs on human sexuality will be banned from ever fostering or adopting children through Massachusetts’ child welfare system.
Policies like that of the Massachusetts DCF are a threat not only to traditional Catholic families but to everybody else who, for religious reasons or no reasons at all, oppose the absolute ideological intolerance that all but dominates the Mainstream Media, the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, virtually all of the secular academic community, entertainment industry and, increasingly, executive suites of the Fortune 500.
As the Burke filing notes, “the rule would extend to many Muslims, Jews, Protestant Christians, and other groups who have similar religious teachings. ‘The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination.’ Kennedy v. Bremerton, 142 S. Ct. 2407, 2433 (2022). DCF should affirm loving foster families, not banish them.”
The shame of it is that the Burkes and millions of Americans across the political spectrum who love children and seek to provide them stability, nurture, and love are increasingly forced to rely upon liberty-loving foundations and public interest law firms like Becket to protect their rights. Ensuring the respect for and protection of every American’s First Amendment rights ought not require having an attorney, deep pockets, and lots of time to spend preparing for court and pursuing justice.
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