SC foster care agency can block placements to parents who aren’t Christian, court rules
To foster a child in South Carolina, a person’s religious beliefs can be required to mirror that of a private placement agency — at least for one agency in the Upstate — a federal court has held.
In two separate decisions Friday, the United States District Court for South Carolina found that Miracle Hill Ministries, a foster-care child placement agency in Greenville, can deny foster placements to parents who lack Christian beliefs and values. The decision comes after a set of same-sex parents and a single woman filed federal lawsuits against Gov. Henry McMaster, among other federal officials, for allowing Miracle Hill to reject their foster applications when it was discovered they were not protestant Christians.
The lawsuits claimed the foster agency’s actions violated the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment Establishment Clause, which prohibits the government from establishing any official religion or favoring any religion over others.
“These two rulings from the U.S. District Court represent significant wins for religious liberty and South Carolina’s faith-based organizations like Miracle Hill, which will be able to continue their crucial mission of connecting children in foster care with loving homes,” McMaster said in a news release Monday. “These victories will directly benefit countless children by further ensuring that faith-based organizations will not be forced to abandon their beliefs to help provide critical services to our state’s youth.”
The cases stem from two separate applications to Miracle Hill to foster children by a same-sex female couple, Eden Rogers and Brandy Welch, and a single woman, Aimee Maddonna. All three women were told they could not foster children from the agency because they harbored religious views contrary to Miracle Hill’s.
In the case of Rogers and Welch, who were married in South Carolina in 2015, the couple contacted Miracle Hill in April 2019 indicating their interest in fostering children, according to the federal order.
Following a call from Miracle Hill, Welch informed the agency that she and Rogers were a same-sex couple. The agency, in turn, advised Welch to fill out an online form and to read the agency’s website, according to Friday’s court order.
In their submission, Rogers and Welch stated they were interested in foster parenting because they “would like for more children to know what it feels like to be unconditionally loved and to be part of a loving family,” the lawsuit said. Plaintiffs also identified themselves as a same-sex couple and members of the Unitarian Universalist Church.
In May 2019, Miracle Hill sent an email to Rogers and Welch rejecting them as potential foster parents because, as members of the Unitarian Universalist Church, their faith “does not align with traditional Christian doctrine,” according to the lawsuit.
Somewhat similarly, in the case of Maddonna, Miracle Hill denied her application after she informed the agency she was Catholic.
McMaster, had previously taken steps to defend Miracle Hill’s position against Rogers, Welch and Maddonna, in part, by issuing an executive order directing the state’s Department of Social Services to “not deny licensure to faith-based child placement agencies solely on account of their religious identity or sincerely held religious beliefs” and to “ensure that the Department of Social Services does not directly or indirectly penalize religious identity or activity.”
The South Carolina foster care system is managed by the Department of Social Services, which has legal custody of all foster children in the state. The agency, responsible for licensing foster families across the state and overseeing training and supervision of foster homes and residential foster facilities, routinely contracts foster placement services with private agencies, such as Miracle Hill.
In both federal cases, on both sides, each party filed for summary judgment — a procedural move in law that asks a judge to rule on an issue as a matter of law versus a judge or jury determining the case on matters of fact, during, for example, a trial.
The plaintiffs argued, in essence, that because Miracle Hill, although a private nonprofit, receives federal and state funding, McMaster and the federal government contributed to its religious discriminatory practices when the agency denied foster applications for Maddonna, Rogers and Welch, in violation of the First Amendment.
The court found that while discriminatory, Miracle Hill’s actions are private and not governmental in nature. Therefore, the agency’s decision to reject the plaintiffs from fostering children does not trigger the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitution “excludes from its reach merely private conduct, no matter how discriminatory or wrongful,” the court cited, from a 2001 federal case.
Moreover, the court found that of the 27 child placement agencies across the state, only one — Miracle Hill — restricts partnerships based on the prospective family’s faith or same-sex marriage, leaving Maddonna, Rogers and Welch with 26 other agencies — including 18 in the Upstate — to work with.
“More than 93% of newly licensed foster families and 97% of foster children statewide are served by someone other than Miracle Hill, as are more than 90% of foster placements in the Upstate Region,” the court cited in its ruling.
“This is a major victory for the children in South Carolina’s foster care system who were at risk of losing out on loving homes,” said Lori Windham, one of several attorneys representing McMaster in the case, according to a news release. “The attempt to shutter faith-based foster care agencies and decrease the number of foster homes for these kids violated the law and common sense. We are glad that South Carolina stood up for foster children and faith-based agencies and that the court protected them.”
This story was originally published October 2, 2023 at 2:05 PM.
