New York loses battle against faith-based adoption organization

Discrimination laws have been at the heart of the conflict between faith-based adoption agencies and local government bureaucracies for years. Faith-based agencies argue for the right to operate according to their beliefs, even if it means adopting only to heterosexual couples. Local governments are responsible for ensuring that the agencies they partner with abide by local discrimination laws.

In a surprising settlement regarding this very issue, New York state officials have agreed to pay $250,000 in attorneys' fees and costs after attempting for years to shutter New Hope Family Services' doors. New Hope's supposed offense? Operating in accordance with its religious beliefs.

While this is a positive outcome, it’s unfortunate that the city targeted New Hope for several years, forcing the organization to participate in time-consuming and costly litigation, via Alliance Defending Freedom, to defend itself for doing something that was well within its First Amendment purview.

Two rulings predated the settlement. One ruling in 2020 temporarily ruled in favor of the faith-based adoption provider. Another ruling in 2022 prohibited the state of New York from enforcing state law "insofar as it would compel New Hope to process applications from, or place children for adoption with, same-sex couples or unmarried cohabitating couples, and insofar as it would prevent New Hope from referring such couples to other agencies."

New Hope is a nonprofit adoption agency and pregnancy center that helps new mothers. While adoptive parents do pay fees, the organization operates without government funding and through private funding from churches, donors, and private grants. For four years, the New York Office of Children and Family Services agency threatened to shut it down, despite the fact that it received no state funding, because New Hope would only place children with a married mother and father, based on orthodox religious beliefs.

The Supreme Court looked at a similar case in 2020, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia . One important, differing factor was that the city worked in conjunction with Fulton, a Catholic foster agency, to help place children in need with proper homes. The city stopped cooperating. Even with that connection, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 2021 that Philadelphia’s refusal to work with the Catholic organization due to their faith-based guidelines on foster families and traditional marriages violated the First Amendment. With this ruling in place, it’s stunning that New York even tried to target New Hope for several years.

State officials targeting private organizations for their religious beliefs is becoming increasingly common. Even if governments eventually lose or are forced to settle, the fight is disconcerting. The First Amendment is expansive enough to cover discrimination laws and orthodox beliefs. Cities run by Democratic activists are consistently demanding that a person of faith or faith-based organization bend to their will because their beliefs are purportedly "discriminatory."

It needs to stop.

Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She is an opinion columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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