Oregon Mom Gets Last Laugh After State Blocked Her from Adopting a Foster Child Due to Her Christian Beliefs
A Christian mother from Oregon prevailed against the state this week after it tried to block her from adopting a foster child several years ago, citing her religious beliefs as the issue.
Jessica Bates filed a lawsuit in 2023 against the Oregon Department of Human Services, challenging a rule that blocked her from adopting any children because of her political and religious views, according to a Monday news release from The Alliance Defending Freedom, which assisted in her case.
She had refused to exercise gender-affirming parenting and would not “lie to children about their identity by promoting the view that girls can become boys and vice versa,” the release said.
Oregon child-welfare officials have now agreed to a court order allowing Bates to obtain a license again to adopt children from foster care, while preserving her religious beliefs.
“Every child deserves a loving home, and children suffer when the government excludes people of faith from foster care because of the state’s own ideological crusade,” ADF Senior Counsel Johannes Widmalm-Delphonse said.
CASE SETTLED: Oregon mother Jessica Bates is now free to adopt after the state excluded her in 2023 for her religious beliefs.
Read more: https://t.co/O7lb1CC5yu
— Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal) September 14, 2026
“Oregon officials turned Jessica away just because of her common-sense belief that parents should help children become comfortable with who they are instead of pushing them down a path of confusion and medicalization. We believe this settlement is a win-win that protects constitutional rights and puts children’s interests first.”
Bates, a widowed mother of five, said she felt God wanted her to adopt and was shocked to find herself in a tumultuous legal battle over her worldviews.
“I was surprised to feel God nudging me to adopt. I never dreamt it would lead to a years-long lawsuit when Oregon excluded me just because of my religious convictions about gender,” she said in a statement.
“I am grateful for ADF picking up my case, advocating for my and every American’s rights, and helping ensure many great homes can remain candidates to help the children in foster care,” she added.
The order came after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in July 2025 that Bates was likely to succeed on First Amendment grounds.
Oregon then agreed to an injunction allowing her to begin the application process for adoption again, before it was ultimately made permanent.
Additionally, Bates will soon be reimbursed for lawyers’ fees and court costs.
She also spoke with Fox News Digital Wednesday about her experience, saying that when she finished foster care training, she had concerns about certain requirements related to gender identity and LGBT issues.
“In the training, the state wanted me to be willing to put pride flags around the house or if a child should come into my care that didn’t identify as binary or whatnot, then I would need to affirm their identity, use their preferred pronouns, support this behavior even if it conflicted with my faith and what I hold to be true,” she said.
“When I was on the phone call with them a few months later, they basically kind of set up the litmus test that, ‘OK, well, what if we place a child in your care who wants to transition from one sex to the other, and we want — we need you to take this child to hormone injection appointments. Would you be willing to do that?’” Bates recalled.
“And that was kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back, because I absolutely would not be willing to do that,” she concluded.
Bates started the process to become certified to adopt in March 2022, but by September that year, her application was denied by the state.
When she submitted her application, Bates wrote, “I need to let you know I cannot support this behavior in a child,” KGW-TV reported.
“I have no problem loving them and accepting them as they are, but I would not encourage them in this behavior,” she declared. “I believe God gives us our gender/sex and it’s not something we get to choose.”
Bates maintained that gender affirmation for minors amounts to “child abuse” and lamented how little society knows about the side effects of hormone treatments.
“It was hard being told you can’t adopt or help at all when you know that there were literally, like, a few thousand kids out there in the foster care system,” she said.
“And just knowing, nope, you can’t help, and you’re excluded was really hard.”
Bates said her husband was killed in a 2017 auto accident. That gave her an understanding of grief and what it does to a person, making her want to help children who had no family of their own.
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