Prominent evangelist Franklin Graham has blasted an Oregon law excluding Christians from adopting children on the basis of woke gender theory.
“Can you imagine a state disqualifying Christians from adopting children because of their belief in the Word of God?” Rev. Graham wrote Thursday to his ten million Facebook followers. “To me, that would be wiping out the best pool of potential parents — just ludicrous.”
“Well, this is what the state of Oregon has done,” he added.
In its enumeration of “Personal Qualifications of Applicants and Certified Resource Families,” the Oregon Department of Human Services has ruled that prospective adopting parents must “respect, accept and support the race, spiritual beliefs, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, disabilities, national origin, cultural identities, immigration status and socioeconomic status of a child or young adult in the care or custody of the Department.”
Because of that law, the Oregon Department of Human Services refused to grant Jessica Bates, a Christian and single mother of five, the certification required to become an adoptive parent. Bates let it be known that she believes that “God gives us our gender/sex and it’s not something we get to choose,” adding that “my faith conflicts” with encouraging children to reject their biological gender.
Cecilia Garcia, the certification officer for the Oregon Department of Human Services office in Malheur County, later informed Bates that she “was ineligible to adopt due to her religious beliefs.”
As Rev. Graham noted, Bates “was denied because she expressed concerns during the progressive state’s required instruction on gender-related issues.”
“She was told she would need to support a child’s desires to do things such as being referred to by a different pronoun than their biological sex, dressing however they want, or taking them to a Pride parade,” he wrote.
“Jessica told them, ‘I have no problem loving them and accepting them as they are, but I would not encourage them in this behavior,’” Graham said.
“Oregon has some 8,000 children in foster care and around 200 waiting to be adopted and this is what the state is concerned about?” he queried.
“For the state to put their political agenda and woke ideology above the needs of these children is appalling,” he wrote.
The law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Jessica Bates, accusing the state of Oregon of imposing an “ideological litmus test” on those seeking to adopt children from foster care.
ADF asserts that Oregon officials have “put politics above children’s welfare.”
Thomas D. Williams is Breitbart Rome Bureau Chief and the author of The Coming Christian Persecution.
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