Are We Deaf to the Sound of Hope?

“Are you sure these people want us?”

Although it’s a line from Angel Studios’ latest film, the heartbreaking question from a young actress portraying a child in need is the same one nearly 400,000 kids living in foster care throughout the country are asking.

No doubt viewers will be relieved to hear the next line.

“Oh, sweetheart. I know they do.”

Beautiful moments like this one played out in the real lives of 77 children who found homes with 22 families in the East Texas town of Possum Trot.

For Donna Martin, it started with a call she heard loud and clear one day. She and her husband, W.C. Martin, who was the pastor of Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, were not about to let the call go unanswered.

Their story, one of a faith-led movement that began in a rural black church and changed the lives of 77 children forever is now being told in Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot. The film opened in theaters July 4.

That same call continues to ring in the hearts of many people of faith throughout the country. Families want to provide soft beds and hot meals for children who are suffering.

But states like Vermont, Oregon, and Washington are turning them away—just because they hold religious beliefs that the state dislikes.

Bryan and Rebecca Gantt heeded Vermont’s call for help. After having four biological children, they became licensed foster parents in 2016. They have a special heart for children with special needs because of maternal alcohol or drug use.

Vermont placed a 4-month-old with the Gantts before the family was even licensed. The child was born dependent on drugs. The Gantts loved him, eventually adopted him, and then adopted two more children from foster care. In 2023, the state later reached out to request they foster yet another baby boy about to be born to a homeless woman addicted to drugs.

But Vermont recently passed a policy requiring religious parents to adopt the state’s gender ideology and disavow their faith. Parents must take children to pride parades and tell a child to reject their biological body. The Gantts told Vermont they would love and accept any child, but they could not compromise their Christian beliefs.

Even amid Vermont’s “crisis beyond what we have seen before,” and a “desperate need” for more families, the Gantts’ foster license was revoked.

And with that, the “crisis” worsened.

Washington state also suffers from a shortage of caregivers. Things are so bad that the state has placed hundreds of children in temporary placements like hotel rooms. They have even forced children to sleep on a cot in a social worker’s office.

Shane and Jenn DeGross are not about to stand by and watch. They provided foster care for vulnerable children for nine years. In 2022, they sought to renew their license, hoping to care for children as respite-care providers.

But Washington told the DeGrosses they must adopt the state’s views on gender ideology before they could consider fostering children.

The DeGrosses are willing and available to open their home, but they cannot ignore their belief that God created us either male or female, and that sex cannot be changed. So, they lost their ability to foster.

The four-year-old in temporary night-to-night placements will just have to wait.

In Oregon, it’s more of the same. Jessica Bates heard the call on a Christian radio program discussing adoption. She wants to provide a home for a sibling pair.

By now you can probably guess why she can’t.

Oregon won’t let her unless she agrees to facilitate a child’s access to dangerous interventions like puberty blockers and hormone shots that can potentially sterilize a child.

The First Amendment ensures that a state can’t leverage children to push its ideology on families who just want to serve children in need. A state can’t force Americans to parrot its preferred views. Nor can it categorically exclude religious families from licensing programs because of their religious beliefs.

Alliance Defending Freedom is defending each of these families to ensure children in need have every opportunity to find a permanent and loving home.

So, to any children who wonder aloud if anyone really wants them, the answer is an emphatic yes.

And to the states standing in their way, please let them find those homes.