Adobe Stock
Two Massachusetts couples are suing the state Department of Children and Families (DCF), arguing that new foster care rules requiring parents to affirm a child’s gender identity violate their First Amendment rights.
The couples are asking the court to strike down the policy as unconstitutional, halt its enforcement, and require the state to cover their legal expenses.
The lawsuit, filed Sept. 3 in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, alleges that DCF is forcing Audrey and Nicholas Jones of Northborough and Greg and Marianelly Schrock of Middlesex County to choose between their Christian faith and their ability to foster.
Both couples say DCF threatened or revoked their licenses after they refused to sign an agreement requiring foster parents to affirm the sexual orientation or gender identity of children in their care, according to the suit.
“Both families will provide a loving and respectful home for any child, including transgender, gay, or lesbian foster children. But that is insufficient for Massachusetts,” the suit states. “The Joneses and Schrocks will soon lose or have lost their foster-care licenses because they could not sign a document promising to automatically ‘promote,’ ‘support’ and ‘affirm’ a hypothetical child’s gender identity or gender expression against their religious convictions.”
The complaint says Massachusetts began enforcing the requirement around 2023 to 2024, mandating that foster parents use a child’s “preferred pronouns, encourage a child to transition socially and medically, and otherwise affirm a child’s stated gender identity when it conflicts with the child’s sex.”
“If a family does not walk in lockstep with DCF’s radical demands, DCF revokes their license — even if the family cares only for infants or close family members or a child for a few hours during respite care,” the lawsuit argues.
The two couples said the requirement prohibits them from sharing their “religious beliefs that God created us male and female, that a person’s gender and sex are objectively rather than subjectively determined, and that the body itself witnesses to God’s perfect design.”
The Joneses, licensed in 2023, currently foster a 17-month-old toddler who has been with them since birth. Their license expired in July, and they say DCF intends to revoke their license and remove the toddler from their home, which they argue would cause harm.
The Schrocks, who fostered 28 children from 2019 to 2025, said they lost their license “because of their Christian beliefs about sexual orientation and gender identity,” as stated in the suit.
Attorneys representing the families include Sam Whiting of the Massachusetts Liberty Legal Center, with support from The First & Fourteenth PLLC and the Alliance Defending Freedom, which published the complaint.
