An overwhelming majority of voters disagree with new Biden administration regulations that require parents to pass an LGBTQ litmus test to adopt foster children, according to an exclusive Daily Wire poll.
Nearly twice as many voters reject banning religious families who oppose transgender ideology from taking in foster children, according to the survey of 1000 registered voters, conducted this week by RMG Research. Only 29 percent say faith-based families who refuse to affirm a child’s gender dysphoria should be banned from adopting, while the rest of the respondents weren’t sure.
On April 30, Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services enacted the “Safe and Appropriate Foster Care Placement Requirements,” which require child welfare agencies to place foster children only with families who have committed to “establishing an environment that supports the child’s LGBTQI+ status or identity.” Under the new rules, foster care providers must use a child’s “identified pronouns” and “chosen name,” and allow the child to dress in a way that “reflects [their] self-identified gender identity and expression.”
The rules also require foster parents to establish “an environment that supports the child’s LGBTQI+ status or identity,” something legal experts warn could be interpreted to mean providing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgical interventions designed to change the child’s sex.
The poll found that an overwhelming majority, 69 percent, said it would be “good” for religious families to adopt a foster child. Only 13 percent said it would be a “bad” thing. When it comes to religious families who oppose transgender ideology, 54 percent of voters do not support banning them from adopting foster children. Only 29 percent agree that faith-based families who refuse to affirm a child’s gender dysphoria should be banned from adopting, while the rest of the respondents weren’t sure.
According to RMG, over two-thirds of voters believe it is good for foster children to be placed in religious families. And nearly 60 percent feel that parents who will not agree to provide puberty blockers and gender transition surgeries, or otherwise support transgender identities, are better for kids than those who will.
LISTEN ON MORNING WIRE: Polling on Biden’s LGBTQ Litmus Test for Foster Care
Among those who prefer families with traditional gender beliefs are 58 percent of independents. The only political group in which a majority did not agree that foster children are better off with families who adhere to traditional gender norms were Democrats, 63 percent of whom say gender dysphoric children will fare better with families that will support their perceived rather than biological identities.
The Biden Administration’s new rules stand to put further strain on a foster care system that is already struggling to serve more than 600,000 children annually as it would disqualify the families most likely to care for vulnerable kids. The new HHS rule is not scheduled to take effect until 2026, but it follows similar regulations in Oregon, Massachusetts, and Vermont.
Practicing Christians are more than twice as likely to foster or adopt than the general population, with Catholics being three times more likely and evangelicals five times more likely. Further, 65 percent of non-kin foster parents attend religious services weekly.
Yet a recent Pew poll found these are also the kinds of families least likely to meet the Biden administration’s new demands. Among white evangelicals, only 15 percent agree that a person’s sex can differ from their biology. For black Protestants like those depicted in Sound of Hope, only 36 percent believe gender can change. (Pew did not offer results for non-whites who identify as evangelical.)
Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot, a new film that tells the true story of 22 Christian families in a single church that adopted 77 at-risk children out of foster care, is providing a fresh picture of this statistical reality.
Adoptive father Josh Weigel, who directed and co-wrote Sound of Hope, fears policies like the new HHS rules will leave vulnerable children at risk of being further neglected, abused, or trafficked.
“That kind of legislation would prevent the story [of Sound of Hope] from happening again,” he told The Daily Wire. “Over two thirds of the people helping [foster kids] are those who may not agree with that kind of legislation…You would have a monumental ocean of traumatized children mounting every year if you were to cut off that kind of care.”
