In significant moves to bolster religious freedom, Kansas and Arkansas enacted laws last week protecting prospective foster and adoptive parents from discrimination against their deeply held religious beliefs.  Both laws prevent each state’s child protective services agency from refusing to place a child in a foster or adoptive home based on the parents’ biblical beliefs on human sexuality.

On April 10, the Kansas Legislature overwhelmingly voted 87-38 in the state House and 31-9 in the Senate to override Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of House Bill 2311. The law prohibits the state’s Department for Children and Families from requiring “a person to affirm, accept, or support any governmental policy regarding sexual orientation or gender identity that may conflict with the person's sincerely held moral or religious beliefs” as a prerequisite for becoming foster or adoptive parents. 

The law also specifically protects parents with a newly placed child in their home who wish to instruct the child in their religious beliefs. The state cannot refrain from selecting or licensing an “eligible” person due to their “sincerely held religious or moral beliefs” or their “intent to guide or instruct a child consistent with such beliefs,” the bill reads. The measure provides individuals a legal avenue to sue the state for injunctive relief, damages, and attorney fees for any policy that violates this law.

Also on April 10, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed into law House Bill 1669, also known as the “Keep Kids First Act.” This legislation protects private faith-based foster care and adoption agencies from having to place children in homes that do not share the agency’s religious or moral beliefs, including beliefs on human sexuality.

The law states that the Arkansas government cannot require agencies to “perform, assist, counsel, recommend, consent to, refer, or participate in a child placement that violates the private child placement agency’s religious or moral convictions.”

Like Kansas’ law, the Arkansas measure also protects prospective foster or adoptive parents from the government interfering with them receiving a child because of any refusal to accept a “government policy regarding sexual orientation or gender identity that conflicts with” their “sincerely held religious beliefs.” The law also allows individuals to bring legal action against the state for violations of this law.

These two laws follow much controversy, debate, and litigation over whether faith-based agencies and Christian parents need to accept and adhere to anti-discrimination policies infused with gender ideology. In the last several years, Christian couples in Vermont and Massachusetts have filed lawsuits for being denied as foster parents because they would not embrace this ideology and would not help a child do so either. In 2023, an Oregon judge ruled that a Christian widow and mother of five could not adopt if she would “disaffirm or disavow” a child’s “LGBTQ+ identity” against state adoption rules.

However, Arkansas’ “Keep Kids First Act” cites a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 2021 that determined the City of Philadelphia could not exclude Catholic Social Services (CSS) from its foster program solely because it refused to place children with same-sex couples. The High Court stated Philadelphia’s exclusion of CSS “violated the First Amendment” because it was not “neutral” toward CSS’ religious beliefs. 

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Government fails to act neutrally when it proceeds in a manner intolerant of religious beliefs or restricts practices because of their religious nature.”

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “We commend Kansas and Arkansas legislators for enacting laws that protect the religious freedom to foster and adopt children without having to compromise religious beliefs. Denying eligible people the chance to care for a child because of their biblical beliefs on human sexuality is offensive to the First Amendment. Every state must follow this lead to protect religious freedoms in its foster and adoption services.”