Michigan's Bethany Christian Services extends LGBTQ-friendly policy to other states

Niraj Warikoo
Detroit Free Press

Bethany Christian Services, an evangelical foster care and adoption agency in Michigan, announced this week it will now allow LGBTQ parents to adopt children across the U.S. 

The agency started working with LGBTQ parents in Michigan two years ago after pressure from a lawsuit and Attorney General Dana Nessel, but the policy was not nationwide.

"These days, families look a lot different than they did when we started" 75 years ago, said Nathan Bult, a spokesman for Bethany Christian Services, in a statement to the Free Press. "And Bethany is committed to welcoming and serving all of them. ... The need is great, so we are taking an 'all hands on deck' approach."

"We will begin implementing this practice nationwide immediately," Bult added. 

Bethany Christian Services in Grand Rapids, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

In an email sent to staff on Monday and first reported in the New York Times, Bethany Christian Services CEO Chris Palusky said the agency will now work with "many types of families who exist in our world today."

Based in Grand Rapids, Bethany Christian Services is one of the largest Christian adoption agencies in the U.S.  It operates in 32 states and several foreign nations, according to its website. 

For years, it had a policy of not allowing gay parents to adopt children. But after facing legal action and opposition in recent years from states and cities where it had contracts, such as Michigan and Philadelphia, Bethany Christian Services started to modify its policies. In 2019, it reached a settlement with the state of Michigan to work with gay parents after legal action brought in a lawsuit.

At the time, Bethany Christian Services said it was "disappointed with" the agreement, but agreed to place children in the homes of LGBTQ parents. As of Monday, Bethany will expand this policy to all states it operates in. 

Bethany places thousands of children in homes every year, receiving taxpayer dollars for much of its work. It has faced criticism in recent years for policies tied to family separation of immigrants at the border and of families where kids are taken from them.

In 2018, the NAACP held a rally in Grand Rapids at Bethany Christian Services, protesting the separation of children. Bethany has said previously that it opposed the Trump administration's policy of separating children at the border and that it will try to reduce separations of Black families.

More:Detroit NAACP: Trump's separation of immigrant kids is like slavery

On Jan. 20, the board of Bethany Christian Services voted 14 to 0 to approve a motion that said it "resolves to implement a nationwide policy of inclusivity in order to serve all families across Bethany’s core service lines."

The motion did not mention gay people specifically, but said that it "is deeply committed to its

historic mission to demonstrate the love and compassion of Jesus to vulnerable children, youth and families."

In the motion, Bethany acknowledged that there may be some Christians who disagree with their policy to work with gay parents, saying: "Christians of mutual good faith can reasonably disagree on various doctrinal issues, about which Bethany does not maintain an organizational position."

Some evangelical Christians have criticized Bethany's new national policy. 

"I am disappointed in this decision, as are many," said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant group in the U.S., in a statement to the Free Press. "The need is great for distinctively Christian adoption and foster care services, including that children need both mothers and fathers. Moreover, this move will harm already existing efforts to enable faith-based orphan care ministries to serve the vulnerable without capitulating on core Christian convictions. ... The state has no right to serve as lord over the conscience."

An employee from Bethany Christian Services rushes with one of three immigrant children to get inside the U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement center in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2018. The three children were soon to be reunited with their fathers from Central America.

The New York Times report said that in 2019, Bethany had 3,406 foster care placements and 1,123 adoptions. 

Bethany Christian Services handles about 8% of Michigan's more than 13,000 foster care and adoption cases involving children, the Associated Press reported in 2019.

In 2017, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and ACLU Michigan filed a lawsuit against Michigan's Department of Health and Human Services on behalf of same-gender couples, including Kristy and Dana Dumont of Dimondale, challenging the policy of Bethany and some Catholic groups that contract with the state of Michigan of not working with gay parents. Bethany then reached a settlement that changed its policies for the state of Michigan. 

ACLU Michigan did not comment on Bethany's new policy. 

In his statement to the Free Press, Bult said that the new policy is part of the group's history of caring for families.

"For the past 75 years, Bethany Christian Services has never wavered from our mission of demonstrating the love and compassion of Jesus to children and families," Bult said. "We help families stay together, we reunify families who are separated, and we help vulnerable children find safe, stable homes when they cannot remain in their own."

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com or 313-223-4792. Twitter @nwarikoo