In April, the Biden-Harris administration finalized a rule requiring foster parents to affirm a child’s gender ideology. 

“The provider must commit to establishing an environment that supports the child’s LGBTQI+ status or identity,” according to the rule issued by the Department of Health and Human Services. 

The policy, according to Herbie Newell, president and executive director of Lifeline Children’s Services, “made people of faith into a different category of foster and adoptive parent, saying that because they didn't give in to this pro-radical LGBTQ+ agenda, that they couldn't foster any child with gender dysphoria or any child that might be having any questions about their LGBTQ status.” 

“Faith-based Christian people were put on the sidelines and not able to participate in our foster care and adoption system in the same way,” according to Newell. 

With over 350,000 children in the U.S. foster care system, and over 100,000 of whom are waiting to be adopted, Newell says he is hopeful the incoming Trump administration will roll back these “oppressive administrative rulings.” 

During Trump’s first administration, there was a sense that “the problem is way too big for us to exclude anyone from the table,” Newell said, noting that he was invited to “West Wing of the White House three times during [Trump’s] presidency.” During the Biden administration, Newell said neither he nor any other faith-based adoption leaders that he knows of were extended such an invitation. 

Newell joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the adoption and foster care policy changes he hopes to see under a second Trump administration. He also explains the ramifications of China’s decision to end international adoptions to the U.S.

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