Washington state agrees to settlement allowing religious families to serve as foster parents

The Alliance Defending Freedom announced Wednesday that Washington state officials agreed to a permanent injunction allowing religious families to serve as foster parents without affirming the foster child's preferred pronouns. 

The settlement comes after a federal judge ruled last month that the state's requirement that Christian foster parents Shane and Jennifer DeGross affirm the gender confusion of any children placed with them as a condition of keeping their foster license plausibly violates the First Amendment.

The Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families will revise its licensing policies to respect all religious families as part of the settlement and won’t “attach[] any conditions or restrictions to the license solely because of their religious beliefs, including speech and actions pertaining to marriage, gender, or sexual relationships.”

“Washington’s policy failed to respect religious diversity because it singled out applicants with traditional religious beliefs on the sanctity of the human body,” ADF Senior Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse said in a statement. 

“The DeGrosses merely asked to be treated the same as any other family—without being asked to compromise their core beliefs," he continued. "This is a win-win because it will ensure more families can serve as foster parents to help meet the needs of every precious child in Washington’s foster-care system. We are thrilled to see common sense and religious liberty prevail.”

The DeGrosses sued Washington state in 2024, alleging its adoption of new "Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity/Expression" regulations flouted a court order in which the state accepted a permanent injunction against a "nearly identical" policy to settle an earlier First Amendment lawsuit by would-be foster parents.

Their license renewal was denied after serving as foster parents for more than nine years because of their religious objections to "socially or medically 'transitioning' children," their lawyers at the Alliance Defending Freedom said, but they were offered a restricted license based on their religious objections after they sued.

The restricted license barred them from fostering children over five years old unless they agreed to abandon their religious convictions.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.