Two Vermont couples are suing the state’s Department for Children and Families, alleging that foster parent requirements intended to protect LGBTQ+ youth are unconstitutional and discriminate against Christians.
The federal lawsuit, filed Tuesday by the prominent conservative legal firm Alliance Defending Freedom, aims to strike down state regulations prohibiting anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination among Vermont foster parents.
“Vermont’s foster-care system is in crisis: There aren’t enough families to care for vulnerable kids and children born with drug dependencies have nowhere to call home,” Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom representing the couples, said in a press release about the lawsuit. “Yet Vermont is putting its ideological agenda ahead of the needs of these suffering kids.”
The suit names three top officials as defendants: Chris Winters, the commissioner of the Department for Children and Families; Aryka Radke, deputy commissioner of the department’s Family Services Division; and Stacey Edmunds, the director of the department’s Residential Licensing & Special Investigations.
It’s the latest Vermont case filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a national conservative legal group. The organization has filed multiple suits in Vermont, targeting limits on public money in private schools, protecting employees accused of transphobia and seeking to strike down state restrictions on anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers.
