Bethany Christian Services, the nation's largest Protestant adoption and foster care agency, voted this month to stop licensing LGBTQ couples, reversing a five-year-old policy and returning to a faith standard it had set aside under political pressure.
The Grand Rapids, Michigan-based nonprofit announced June 10 that its board had voted to reaffirm a Statement of Faith and Belief defining marriage as "a covenant between one man and one woman." Starting in June 2027, Bethany will only license and re-license foster families whose faith and beliefs align with that statement. Staff and board members in senior roles were required to personally affirm the document by June 1; every other employee faces the same deadline a year later.
CEO Keith Cureton, who joined the organization in 2023, said the shift is "really about three things: it's about clarity, it's about conviction and it's about faith and belief." Cureton told Christianity Today he found the agency "really struggling with our identity" when he arrived, and that clarity around Christian identity is "essential to our Christian witness and critical to the long-term health, sustainability, and impact of our mission."
The decision reverses a 2021 policy under which Bethany had begun licensing LGBTQ foster and adoptive parents, a move the agency made as civil liberties groups pushed for state and federal nondiscrimination rules that would have forced faith-based organizations to choose between their convictions and their government contracts. That episode cost Bethany the active support of donors and conservative faith leaders who saw the 2021 change as accommodation rather than a theological conclusion.
Bethany's reversal did not happen without context. Since January 2025, the Trump administration has dismantled much of the federal architecture of LGBTQ nondiscrimination mandates, rolling back rules in housing, healthcare, and education that had been used to pressure faith-based organizations into compliance. For Bethany, which operates in more than 25 states and employs more than 1,000 people worldwide, that shift mattered. Under the Biden-era regulatory regime, operating according to biblical standards carried real risk to federal partnerships and contracts. That pressure has eased considerably, clearing legal air for agencies to act on convictions they had been forced to keep quiet.
The new Statement of Faith and Belief also addresses abortion and non-traditional gender identities, according to Religion News Service, making this a broader reaffirmation of evangelical commitments rather than a single-issue licensing adjustment.
Bethany was careful to draw a line around what the change does and does not cover, stating it will "continue to serve all children and families who seek its help, regardless of their individual circumstances, beliefs, or background." LGBTQ children in the foster system and families seeking other services remain eligible. The policy applies specifically to who can be licensed as a foster or adoptive parent through Bethany's programs.
Five Years of Drift, Now Corrected
Bethany's 2021 move drew immediate backlash from evangelical donors and conservative faith leaders, with MinistryWatch reporting that major donors paused or redirected giving in the years that followed. The agency framed the 2021 change as a way to serve more children in need. Critics said it was political accommodation dressed as compassion.
Cureton's language this week framed the correction not as a retreat but as a recovery of mission. His arrival in 2023, two years after the original policy shift, preceded the current reversal, suggesting the board had been working toward this moment since he came on board. The new Statement of Faith also includes the Apostles' Creed and affirms the authority of the Christian Bible, the Christian Post reported, anchoring the licensing rules in a full doctrinal framework rather than a standalone position on marriage.
No other major Protestant adoption agency has publicly announced a similar reversal in the days since Bethany's June 10 announcement. But Bethany's scale makes it the most consequential single actor in Protestant foster and adoption services in the country, and its realignment under a more permissive federal regulatory environment could encourage other faith-based agencies that have held similar convictions quietly to act on them openly. The June 2027 licensing deadline gives the sector a clear marker to watch.
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