It’s been three years since the Supreme Court first recognized marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges, striking as unconstitutional state-level bans on same-sex marriage. And in that time, religious conservatives have zeroed in on the familial rights of LGBTQ people in their efforts to roll back the civil rights gains promised by the Obergefell decision. Their most recent efforts are gaining ground.
First, there are the legislative attacks. This year, lawmakers in both Kansas and Oklahoma passed measures allowing child-placement agencies to refuse to serve certain families, including LGBTQ families, based on the agencies’ religious or moral beliefs. At least seven other states have similar laws or policies on the books already. Then, there are the attacks coming from the Trump administration, which has repeatedly sided with religious conservatives objecting to complying with civil rights laws that prohibit same-sex discrimination. Both lines of attack have spawned federal litigation that’s pending across the country, which has set up religious efforts to deny LGBTQ families the opportunity to foster or adopt children as the next test of the strength and reach of Obergefell.
In February 2017, Fatma Marouf and Bryn Esplin started discussing becoming parents. The two women had married in 2015 and shortly thereafter moved to Texas, where they both work as professors at Texas A&M University. When fertility treatments proved unsuccessful, the couple began to consider foster parenting and adoption. Catholic Charities of Fort Worth (CCFW), a child-placement agency affiliated with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), reached out to Marouf and the immigration law clinic she directs at Texas A&M about the affiliate’s work with unaccompanied refugee children. The timing seemed fortuitous: Marouf and Esplin began the licensing process to become foster parents for a refugee child.
They never got the chance: CCFW rejected them immediately as foster parents. During their first interview with placement staff, CCFW’s board executive committee chair informed the couple not to submit an application because their family structure did not “mirror the Holy Family,” according to court documents. Shocked and distraught, the couple made a complaint to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the branch of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that oversees international placements like the couple had hoped for here. HHS funds the program the couple was turned away from. Marouf and Esplin allege in court filings that the agency has been mostly unresponsive to the complaints, which has allowed the discrimination to continue. Marouf and Esplin eventually sued the Trump administration and the USCCB, alleging they had been discriminated against because they are a same-sex couple. Their case is pending in federal court in Washington, D.C., where both the Trump administration and the bishops have asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.
Marouf and Esplin’s situation is, unfortunately, not unique. The City of Philadelphia is in a fight with Catholic Social Services over the latter’s practice of refusing to place children with LGBTQ couples and also, allegedly, requiring potential families provide a “pastoral reference” before they can be considered for placement. This requirement would also remove many non-religious households from consideration, or create a system that preferences Christian households over other faiths. Meanwhile, as Sarah Posner reported for the Nation, long-time Trump ally and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) personally intervened with HHS to try and secure a religious exemption from federal nondiscrimination laws for a Christian child-placement agency in that state. In March, McMaster also issued an executive order allowing the state’s adoption agencies to discriminate based on religious beliefs.
All this means that religious conservatives may have found a successful avenue to challenge the reach of the Obergefell decision.
Read the full story at Rewire
