Christian foster parents lose license in Massachusetts for refusing to affirm gender ideology

LifeSite | October 13, 2025
Original article can be viewed HERE

A Christian foster couple is speaking out against the state of Massachusetts for taking away their foster license because they refused to sign a pledge to affirm gender confusion.

CBS News reported that Lydia and Heath Marvin, who currently have three teens and have fostered eight kids under age four since 2020, lost their license in April when they refused to sign the state Department of Children & Families’ (DCF) LGBTQIA+ Non-Discrimination Policy, which requires of foster families “ability and willingness to support and affirm LGBTQIA+ children placed in their care.” They appealed the judgment but have been denied.

“We asked, is there any sort of accommodation, can you waive this at all?” Lydia Marvin says. “We will absolutely love and support and care for any child in our home, but we simply can’t agree to go against our Christian faith in this area. And, were ultimately told you must sign the form as is or you will be delicensed.”

“We would love and care and support any child but if there was an issue where we knew that we would have a different position than DCF, we would just be open and talk to them about it,” Heath Marvin added.

The Marvins have not yet settled on their next move, but LifeSiteNews reported last month that Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is currently representing two other Massachusetts families in a similar situation: Nick and Audrey Jones, who have cared for seven small children since 2023; and Greg and Marianelly Schrock, who have cared for 28 since 2019.

“Massachusetts’ foster care system is in crisis: The commonwealth has more than 1,400 children who are waiting to be placed with a loving family. Yet Massachusetts is putting its ideological agenda ahead of the needs of these suffering kids,” ADF senior counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse said. “This is a particularly egregious case because the Joneses care for a little girl who is happy and healthy in the only home she’s ever known. Now just because of the Joneses’ commonly held religious beliefs, the commonwealth says the Joneses are unfit to parent and is threatening to uproot this little child. That’s not putting children first and that’s why we’re suing the commonwealth in federal court.”

The Trump administration has now gotten involved as well. Andrew Gradison, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, warned DCF that its “policies and developments are deeply troubling, clearly contrary to the purpose of child welfare programs, and in direct violation of First Amendment protections.”

A large body of evidence shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them, or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically transformative, and often-irreversible surgical and chemical procedures.

Studies find that more than 80% of children experiencing gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence, and that even full “reassignment” surgery often fails to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and may even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.

Christian foster parents lose license in Massachusetts for refusing to affirm gender ideology

Christian foster parents lose license in Massachusetts for refusing to affirm gender ideology

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