One of the nation’s largest religious adoption and foster care agencies announced this week that it will now allow children to be placed in LGBTQ+ households.
Bethany Christian Services, which is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, sent an email to staff on Monday informing them of the agency’s new policy of working with same-sex prospective parents in the 32 states and seven countries in which it operates. According to the New York Times, Bethany was already accepting LGBTQ+ applicants in 12 states, including Michigan, following the settlement of a lawsuit in 2019.
The internal letter doesn’t specifically mention same-sex parents. Instead Bethany’s president and chief executive, Chris Palusky, said the organization “will now offer services with the love and compassion of Jesus to the many types of families who exist in our world today.”
“We’re taking an ‘all hands on deck’ approach where all are welcome,” he said in a statement cited by the Times.
Statements to members of the press also refrained from acknowledging LGBTQ+ people directly while sending the message that all parents are welcome at Bethany. In a statement to the religious publication Catholic News Agency, a representative for the nonprofit said its “sole job is to determine if a family can provide a safe, stable environment for children.”
“We believe that Christians with diverse beliefs can unify around our mission of demonstrating the love and compassion of Jesus,” Bethany claimed. “It’s an ambitious mission, and we can only accomplish it together.”
The announcement stands to have a tremendous impact on the estimated 115,000 same-sex households in the U.S. with an adopted child. Studies have long shown that LGBTQ+ couples are far more likely to adopt or foster a child than their heterosexual, cisgender counterparts: According to the LGBTQ+ think tank The Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles, around 20% of same-sex parents have an adopted child, as opposed to just 3% of opposite-sex parents.
But while the news is welcome, it isn’t altogether surprising. Bethany was one of a handful of religious placement centers implicated in a controversy regarding a lesbian couple in Philadelphia who was turned away by a separate agency in 2018. The city subsequently suspended contracts to adoption and foster care centers that discriminate.
Bethany changed its policy as a result of the fallout, but Catholic Social Services did not, eventually taking the matter to the Supreme Court in 2020. The federal bench, which tilts 6-3 in favor of conservatives, is expected to issue its verdict later this year. While oral arguments from last November suggested that SCOTUS was inclined to side with religious entities, it remains to be seen how Bethany’s recent decision could affect the judges’ final opinion.
Bethany is expected to train staff on LGBTQ+ competency in the coming months. Palusky said the organization’s aim is to bring together “a broad coalition of people – finding families and resources for children in the greatest need.”
“We help families stay together, we reunify families who are separated, and we help vulnerable children find safe, stable homes when they cannot remain in their own,” he told the Grand Rapids NBC news affiliate WOOD-TV in a statement. “These days, families look a lot different than they did when we started. And Bethany is committed to welcoming and serving all of them.”
According to the progressive nonprofit Movement Advancement Project, 11 U.S. states have laws on the books allowing foster care and adoption agencies to refuse the placement of a child in LGBTQ+ homes. These include Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas.
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