Posted on 06/07/2024 2:59:32 PM PDT by Morgana
A religious couple in Massachusetts took the Commonwealth to court for banning them from welcoming vulnerable children into their home through the Commonwealth’s foster care program.
In Burke v. Walsh, Mike and Kitty Burke wanted to foster and someday adopt children in need of a family. Even though Massachusetts has a foster care crisis, state officials refused to let the Burkes foster any children in the state.
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The reason was their religious beliefs about marriage, sexuality, and gender. With the help of Becket, the Burkes are asking the court to ensure that qualified families no longer suffer for their religious beliefs and that vulnerable children are given a loving home.
They just won their fist battle in court, according to Sam Whiting an attorney with the Massachusetts Family Institute.
Things can often seem bleak for religious liberty here in Massachusetts. But every so often, we hear about victories that shine light into the darkness and remind us that freedom can be preserved and restored, even here.
Just yesterday, we learned that a Massachusetts federal judge issued an order refusing to dismiss a case brought by a Catholic husband and wife after they were denied the ability to foster children due to their beliefs. This is a major win that is likely to have significant implications for Christian families in the Commonwealth and beyond.
Last year, Mike and Kitty Burke, a devout Catholic couple who felt called by God to foster children in need, applied to become foster parents in Massachusetts. The Burkes underwent extensive training, interviews, and a home study, and passed with flying colors. But even though the Massachusetts foster system is severely overburdened, to the point that the State has resorted to housing children in hospitals for weeks on end, Mike and Kitty were denied the opportunity to foster for one simple reason: their faith. The Department of Children and Families (DCF) ultimately determined that their Catholic beliefs would prevent them from being “affirming” toward LGBT children, so they could not be trusted to foster.
The Burkes made clear to DCF that they would love and support any child in their care; they just couldn’t affirm a lie about who God created them to be. But this was not good enough for DCF. So, to protect their religious liberty and the freedoms of other families, the Burkes partnered with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to file suit against DCF. Attorney Michael Gilleran, an MFI Board member, serves as local counsel on the case.
DCF filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming they had the right to exclude religious families from the foster care system. Thankfully, the Court emphatically rejected that claim. In his order, the judge wrote that due to DCF’s actions, the Burkes faced a “fundamental dilemma in this case: they could renounce their religious beliefs and receive a foster license, or they could adhere to those beliefs and forfeit the license.” This is not a choice that the government can force people to make under our Constitution.
Although the Burkes’ fight is not over yet, we are very optimistic that they will ultimately prevail. No one should be denied the opportunity to help children in need simply because their religious beliefs prevent them from affirming sexual confusion. We need more foster parents like the Burkes, not fewer. We believe this decision will serve as a strong rebuke to DCF and other state agencies in Massachusetts that routinely trample on citizens’ religious liberty rights.
Mike and Kitty Burke are a Catholic couple from Massachusetts who have long wanted to become parents. Mike is an Iraq war veteran, Kitty is a former paraprofessional for special needs kids, and together they run a business and perform music for Mass. Mike and Kitty began exploring becoming foster parents through the state’s foster care program, hoping to care for and eventually adopt children in need of a stable, loving home like theirs.
“After months of interviews and training, and after years of heartbreak, we were on the verge of finally becoming parents,” said Mike and Kitty Burke. “We were absolutely devastated to learn that Massachusetts would rather children sleep in the hallways of hospitals than let us welcome children in need into our home.”
The state only wants perverts to be foster parents.
I’ll assume you don’t know the sorts of comments you just invited.
If they do not repent, the people who passed these wicked laws will not fare well in the judgment.
Sin angers the Lord on general principle but the sin of corrupting children is especially hateful to Him and is expressly singled out for an exceptionally severe judgment.
Prov. 6; Matt. 18:6 and Luke 17:2
Good luck to this couple. This systemized discrimination against Catholics has been going on at least for the last 15 years.
The laws have been broken that way for so long, many start to believe it’s the legal and proper thing to do.
The state does only want perverts to foster children. We live in a time of evil and will have to fight our way out of it.
Christians can be perverse too.
God, you are so weak and accommodation it is disgusting. Why are you on this forum. Odds are good that you are a closet pervert.
lol.
Nevertheless, they can.
Totalitarian creep.
Same religious bigotry in Vermont. Look at what we have become
bkmk
Our filthy bull dyke Governor....and her filthy bull dyke Attorney General...will fight this all the way up to SCTOUS.Of course their plan is to bankrupt the couple so they’ll go away.
If they were remotely interested in the child’s well-being, and also believed in the LGBT thing, they would simply not direct children who have already gone down that path to them.
But it seems again the issue is not the issue.
In 1954 my parents -conservative Catholics- adopted a 5 month-old baby boy- ME. 8 years later, they adopted my brother. They never had any problems with the State of Illinois or Catholic Charities. To me, the different state is immaterial.
It’s THE RADICALIZATION of our social services that’s allowing this to happen.
Good people are being denied the chance to become good parents in a world where they are sorely needed, and this is just wrong.
“Good people are being denied the chance to become good parents in a world where they are sorely needed, “
Yet they have no problem letting freak homosexual couples adopt children.
You really need to learn how to read English if you want to grow up to a real troll one day instead of the stinking obvious one you are now.
Now go let nurse change your nappies.
That hurt!
Our communist masters have absolutely no limits to the tyrannical elimination of the last few vestiges of formerly Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms & liberty that the American serfs enjoy...
The hubris of these communist tyrants is matched only by the indolence and meekness of the current, well-indoctrinated American serfs...
There is no end in sight...
The tenacity of our tyrannical communist rulers in imposing more & more tyranny is unmatched by those seeking (supposedly) to recover our former Constitutional freedoms & liberties...
All of that unfortunately true, at this time.
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