Christian adoption giant reverses course, shutting out prospective LGBTQ parents
Bethany Christian Services, the nation's largest Protestant adoption agency, says it's returning to its religious identity at the expense of children who need homes
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In 2021, Bethany Christian Services, the largest Protestant adoption and foster care agency in the country, announced that it would start working with LGBTQ couples.
While it was a private organization allowed to set its own rules, Bethany relied on federal funds to support its work across 32 states (at the time) and they were facing lawsuits over their refusal to work with openly gay couples. (They had won a Supreme Court case in 2018 in which they were involved, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, but they clearly didn’t want to spend all their time battling lawsuits.)
It wasn’t hard to justify the decision, though. They wanted to make sure kids were in good homes, and that mission prevailed over faith-based bigotry, right? The group’s leader said at the time, “we are not claiming a position on the various doctrinal issues about which Christians may disagree.” The organization even commissioned a survey that found a majority of Christians believed it was better for kids to be adopted by decent parents, even if they were LGBTQ, than remain in foster care. They even reassured their donors at the time that “three past executive directors and CEOs… agreed with the new inclusion policy.”
One pastor celebrated the decision at the time:
When same-sex couples are not excluded, more children get placed into stable, loving homes with dedicated parents. Research overwhelmingly shows that children with two moms or two dads thrive just as well as their classmates who have parents of different genders. Commitment, nurturance, patience and everyday things like changing diapers, making lunches, keeping tabs on screen time and bedtime prayers are what make a family.
…
Many Christians believe this too: If Bethany Christian Services’ new policy of nondiscrimination sticks and spreads, the compassionate face of the church will shine brighter. It’s a sign that brighter days are ahead for the church and the country.
Those brighter days are now gone. Because knowing full well that the Trump administration, with the backing of white evangelicals, are never going to make them do the right thing, Bethany has now chosen the path of bigotry.
Last week, they announced that they would rather see kids not have any parents at all than place them with qualified same-sex parents. Or, as they put it, Bethany was now working to “clarify and reinforce the Christian faith commitments and beliefs.”
At the heart of this effort, Bethany is expanding and reaffirming its Statement of Faith and Belief, which will include both the Apostles’ Creed and longstanding Biblical principles previously affirmed by the organization. All staff and board members will be asked to personally agree and adhere to this statement. Additionally, Bethany will continue its longstanding partnership with the church to find foster families whose beliefs and practices align with our organization’s faith and Christian mission.
The announcement didn’t include any mention of LGBTQ people because, true to form, they would prefer to just erase those families from existence.
It’s truly incredible to have a bare minimum Statement of Faith and Belief that references the “authority of scripture,” a mandate to “care for the vulnerable,” and “No homo.” (Okay, that last one is paraphrased.) It comes after the previous CEO was replaced by a new guy, Keith Cureton, who told the Christian Post he needed to make the change because “we were really struggling with our identity.”
So when they’re struggling with their identity, it must be accommodated… in order to make life worse for children who may be struggling with theirs. Incredible irony.
In practice, this means children in need of safe, loving, welcoming homes will have fewer options to choose from because a large Christian group with the power to help them has needlessly chosen to double down on exclusion.
And according to Bethany, this wasn’t because of donor pressure or a fear of losing funding under the Trump administration. They just felt like it.
When asked if these changes were due to concerns about funding or based on input from donors, a spokesperson said the decisions were not due to external pressure but “reflect a decision to reinforce our Christian identity by our Board and Executive Leadership following prayer and discernment.”
They always cite prayer and discernment when the real answer is “We’re just bigots”…
What about children who are LGBTQ? Bethany says it’ll continue to help them and place them in homes, but the implication is that those vulnerable children will now be placed in homes where their new parents could send them to “conversion therapy” or deny their very identity. That’s not hypothetical. It’s now part of the contract. (“We further believe God creates human beings in His image as male and female, as determined by biological sex.”)
In case you’re wondering how secular adoption/foster care agencies—which don’t discriminate—deal with these situations, here’s what one state-run agency requires of prospective foster parents:
Respect, accept and support the race, ethnicity, cultural identities, national origin, immigration status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disabilities, spiritual beliefs, and socioeconomic status, of a child or young adult in the care or custody of the Department, and provide opportunities to enhance the positive self-concept and understanding of the child or young adult’s heritage; and
Assure that all members of the household, excluding a child or young adult in the care or custody of the Department… Do not pose a risk to the safety, health, and well-being needs of a child or young adult in the care or custody of the Department…
That’s what it looks like when an agency puts a child’s needs above parents’ faith-based hate. They’ll proudly work with any qualified adults who want to adopt or take in foster children, including religious ones, but not at the risk of making life worse for the children in their care.
Not so with Bethany, which apparently believes children in need of parents need fewer options. Cureton told the Christian Post that his group would work with families who weren’t sufficiently Christian to “transition” them “to another child placement agency, with a goal of minimizing disruptions for children, because that's our number-one focus." But there simply aren’t enough agencies out there to do this work. What’s the point of being one of the largest Christian adoption/foster care groups in the country if you can’t help qualified people who want to work with you for no reason other than they’re in same-sex relationships (or merely affirm them)?
It’s not that Bethany needs to do this because they’re overwhelmed with clients. In fact, the rule change suggests that Bethany would work with these prospective parents if they were straight, just not if they’re gay. It’s a choice.
Making matters worse, there have been plenty of horror stories about children who were placed in abusive Christian homes. Even if we exclude people who were obvious red flags, the emotional trauma that comes from being an LGBTQ kid in a conservative Christian home cannot be stressed enough:
Adoptees have a lot stacked against them even if they don’t have to wrestle with their sexual identity in a family that might be anti-gay. “A sense of rejection is already present for the adopted foster child. Being rejected for a fundamental part of ‘self’ cuts even deeper,” explained Kelly Crenshaw, a reverend based in Maryland who advocates for LGBTQ youth. “It’s another piece of baggage to carry through life that just makes things more complicated: Are people going to accept me? Will I be allowed to date? Do I have to hide my real self? What if my family doesn’t want me anymore?”
The likelihood of those situations arising with people Bethany works with will now go up.
It’s not like they’re making this change because horrible things happened starting in 2021 when they opened their doors to same-sex parents. If anything, five years ago, the organization effectively acknowledged what research and real-life have said: LGBTQ parents are just as capable of providing safe, loving, stable homes as anyone else. That hasn’t changed. There’s no new research showing otherwise. No crisis forced Bethany’s hand. All that happened is, under a Republican administration, they were given permission to be the worst versions of themselves and they took it. They believe excluding loving families is more important than helping as many children as possible.
It’s such a morally bankrupt decision. Bethany wants credit for caring about vulnerable children while intentionally shrinking the pool of people willing to care for them. Every qualified couple turned away because they’re gay is one less potential home for a child who needs one. This is no longer about finding the best possible placement for children; it’s about promoting one harmful brand of Christianity above all else.
For a group that spends so much time talking about compassion, this is a remarkable failure of it. Bethany could have modeled what genuine Christian care looks like when you put the vulnerable first. Instead, as critics could have predicted, they chose discrimination as soon as they felt they could get away with it.
Their new slogan: "Better homeless than homo" tested very well among MAGA donors.
The Religion of Love. The "Pro-Life" crowd. The folks that cry "Think of the children!"
Lie after lie after lie. Just like their relgion.