Few things in life are more tragic than children in need of a home. Nothing is more crucial than the support system a loving household can provide.
Fostering children is an incredibly selfless act—one that deserves praise. Foster families step in the gap not for recognition but out of compassion and conviction that every child deserves a safe and loving home.
Yet, despite all of that, foster families are being sidelined across the nation—not because they can’t provide loving homes, but because they won’t parrot government-approved talking points to children. The government has increasingly chosen to disrupt the foster and adoption process for people of faith—no matter how disastrous it is for children.
You don’t even have to look that hard to find government officials telling foster families how to foster—or else.
- In Vermont, ADF is defending a pair of families that had their foster licenses revoked because they won’t affirm the government’s belief that boys can become girls and vice versa.
- In Oregon, a Court ruled to let a mother of five move forward with the adoption process after her application was originally denied because of her faith.
In other words, this is happening in states across the country.
That’s why ADF filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of two Massachusetts families after the state effectively told them that they were disqualified from fostering because their religious beliefs were now incompatible with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families’ (DCF) new Gender Identity Policy.
Massachusetts had threatened to revoke a license—and take back a 1-year-old
Nick and Audrey Jones are a Christian couple in the Commonwealth. They have been licensed foster parents since 2023 and reside in Worcester County, Massachusetts. In addition to having two of their own kids, Nick and Audrey have provided foster care to seven children over the last two years, including their only current placement, an under-two-year-old girl who has practically lived with the family her whole life.
Just as importantly, Nick and Audrey are committed Christians who live out their faith in daily life. Nick and Audrey hold to the Bible’s teaching that people are created as male and female and cannot change that fact. They believe that using opposite-sex pronouns or making efforts to change one’s gender is wrong. This is a strongly held religious conviction for the Joneses and millions of other Christians.
Due to those convictions, there are some DCF requirements that Nick and Audrey categorically could not comply with, such as verbally affirming a child’s desire to identify as the opposite sex (or no sex) or encouraging a confused child to undergo a social or medical gender “transition.”
In 2025, Nick and Audrey received the new Foster Parent Agreement for the first time as part of their annual license review. After reading about some of these new DCF policies, the Christian couple ultimately decided it could not sign the agreement and notified the DCF as such. In response, Nick and Audrey were told that continuing their license “won’t work” and were also told that there were no exemptions from signing the agreement form.
Nick and Audrey’s foster license expired in July 2025, and they did not receive any official revocation or discontinuation letter from DCF. What Nick and Audrey found out, however, is that the DCF intended to remove their foster daughter—who is completely unaffected by the DCF’s Gender Identity Policy—just because the couple wouldn’t sign a Foster Parent Agreement that would force them to violate their faith.
Massachusetts also discontinued the foster license of a more experienced family
Greg and Marianelly Schrock are a Christian couple living in Middlesex County, Massachusetts with their two children. The couple first became a foster family in 2019 and has cared for 28 separate foster children. Greg and Marianelly long maintained a loving and supportive home for the kids.
Despite that sterling reputation, however, Massachusetts discontinued the Schrocks’ foster care license in June 2025 because of their Christian beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity.
Like Nick and Audrey, Greg and Marianelly are devout Christians who strongly believe that the Bible teaches that human beings are created as male or female and that an individual cannot change the fact of their God-gifted sex. Greg and Marianelly further believe that it is not “caring” to encourage children to change their bodies to fit a perceived “gender identity.” In fact, the couple became foster parents because of their faith, specifically with regards to the teachings of the Bible, which require Christians to take special care of widows and orphans, and they believe that foster care is a way they can live out their faith. To say that Greg’s and Marianelly’s faith has been instrumental in their decision to foster would be an understatement
Children suffer when government excludes people of faith from adoption and foster care
The most inexplicable part of Massachusetts’ treatment of Christian foster families was that the Commonwealth is in dire need of foster homes to lovingly welcome 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.
And make no mistake: The Jones and Schrock families are good foster homes. Both families have made abundantly clear that they’ll welcome in and love any child but also can’t do anything to violate their deeply held beliefs.
Massachusetts tried to push its own state-mandated viewpoints on gender ideology over the needs of children and against the will of foster families. Because of this, ADF attorneys filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Joneses and Schrocks in September 2025. Following that lawsuit, in December, Massachusetts ultimately chose to change its foster care licensing policy from saying “sexual orientation and gender identity” to “individual identity and needs.” But this issue isn’t completely resolved.
“Massachusetts has told us that this new regulation will no longer exclude Christian and other religious families from foster care because of their commonly held beliefs that boys are boys and girls are girls,” ADF Senior Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse said. “Our clients—loving, caring foster families who have welcomed vulnerable children into their homes—as well as many other families affected by this policy, are eager to reapply for their licenses. This amendment is a step in the right direction, and we commend Massachusetts officials for changing course.
“But this case will not end until we are positive that Massachusetts is committed to respecting religious persons and ideological diversity among foster parents.”
Indeed, every child deserves a loving home. Children suffer when the government excludes people of faith from foster care, and that’s why ADF is committed to this cause.
Jones v. Mahaniah
- June 2022: The Massachusetts DCF approves policy mandating foster families affirm the state’s ideology.
- February 2023: The DCF updates its “Licensing of Foster, Pre-Adoptive, and Kinship Families” policy.
- June 2025: The Schrock family has its foster license discontinued.
- July 2025: The Jones’ foster license is up for renewal, but they’ve been told renewing their license “won’t work” because of their beliefs.
- September 2025: ADF, working alongside the Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center and First & Fourteenth PLLC, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Jones and Schrock families.
- December 2025: Massachusetts removes the gender ideology mandate from its foster care policy.
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