Arkansas enacts religious freedom protections for adoptive parents, faith-based agencies

Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks at the annual CPAC D.C. conference at the Gaylord National Resort in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025. / Credit: DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 14, 2025 / 14:32 pm (CNA).

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has signed into law a bill to prevent adoptive agencies and foster care providers from discriminating against potential parents on account of their religious beliefs. 

The Keep Kids First Act provides religious freedom protections to both prospective parents and faith-based adoption and foster care organizations to prevent either from having to violate their firmly held religious beliefs during the fostering and adoption processes. 

The act specifies that the state government may not discriminate against adoptive parents based on “refusal to accept or support any government policy regarding sexual orientation or gender identity that conflicts with the person’s sincerely held religious beliefs” and grants parents the ability to seek legal action against the state for violations. 

“Every child deserves a loving home that can provide them stability and opportunities to grow. Yet other states have put politics over people by excluding caring families and faith-based adoption and foster care organizations from helping children find loving homes,” Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior Counsel Greg Chafuen stated in response to the news.

Chafuen praised the act for prioritizing “the well-being of kids by prohibiting state and local government officials from discriminating against adoption and foster care providers and parents simply because of their religious beliefs and moral convictions.”

ADF currently represents families in Vermont and a mother in Oregon who are fighting lawsuits against policies in those states that require prospective foster and adoptive parents to first affirm an adherence to gender ideology before they can foster or adopt children.

Last week, lawmakers in Kansas successfully voted to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a law protecting religious liberty of adoptive and foster parents on issues related to gender identity and sexual orientation. More than two-thirds of Kansas lawmakers voted to pass the law prohibiting Kansas Department for Children and Families from enacting policies that would force an adoptive parent or foster parent to affirm support for gender ideology or homosexuality to obtain a license to adopt or foster children.