A federal district court warned Washington state April 23 that its rule requiring foster parents to use LGBTQ pronouns and support “gender transitions” plausibly violates the First Amendment, allowing a lawsuit by a Christian couple to move forward.
According to a press release from Alliance Defense Freedom (ADF), the ruling in DeGross v. Hunter, issued by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, denied state officials' motion to dismiss the case brought by Shane and Jennifer DeGross, longtime foster parents who lost their license in 2022 after objecting on religious grounds to the state's “gender affirmation” requirements.
The court found that Washington's rule "restricts certain speech by prospective parents on the topic of Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression, while requiring speech that aligns with the state's perspective."
"In essence, the Department has forced the DeGrosses to choose between forfeiting their freedom of speech to obtain an unrestricted license, or upholding their beliefs surrounding SOGIE, and receiving a less-favorable license subject to certain restrictions," the court wrote.
The DeGrosses are represented by ADF, a conservative nonprofit legal organization. ADF Senior Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse said the state's policy harms not only foster parents but the children who need them.
"When children are sleeping on cots in child-welfare offices for lack of loving homes, states like Washington should be doing everything they can to bring in more qualified foster parents," Widmalm-Delphonse said. "But Washington state is putting its own ideological agenda ahead of children's needs."
The DeGrosses had served as foster parents in Washington for several years before state officials declined to renew their license in 2022 under WAC 110-148-1520, a regulation that requires foster parents to use names and pronouns associated with foster kids’ new “gender identities.” After the couple sued the state in 2024 alleging religious discrimination, Washington agreed to allow them to reapply for licensure.
However, following what the lawsuit describes as an onerous renewal process, state officials again declined to issue the DeGrosses a standard foster-care license. Instead, officials restricted the couple to placements of children 5 years old and younger unless the couple would agree to comply with the state's requirements on “gender identity” — a condition the DeGrosses said violates their religious convictions about the sanctity of the human body.
The new ruling does not resolve the case on the merits. It allows the DeGrosses' First Amendment and religious discrimination claims to proceed to further litigation.
The court drew a parallel to Bates v. Pakseresht, an earlier case in which ADF attorneys challenged a similar policy in Oregon. A federal court enjoined that policy in 2021 as likely unconstitutional. Citing that precedent, the court wrote that the Washington rule similarly compels and restricts speech on the basis of viewpoint.
"The situation would be no different if the state had restricted parental speech favoring more 'progressive' views of sexuality and gender identity, while compelling speech along the lines of [the DeGrosses'] more traditional understanding," the court quoted from the earlier case.