New Hope Family Services filed a motion this month asking the court to allow the Christian nonprofit to continue its critical work of placing infants with disabilities or other “hard to place” factors in permanent homes without government harassment because of its religious beliefs.
The suit was filed after the New York Division of Human Rights threatened to investigate and penalize the Syracuse based Christian nonprofit because it places infants with couples consisting of a mother and father committed to each other in marriage.
Two federal courts have already found that the state likely violated New Hope’s First Amendment rights by attempting to force it to place children in a manner inconsistent with its religious beliefs. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court more recently held that an effort by the city of Philadelphia violated the First Amendment rights of a faith-based foster-care agency by invoking non-discrimination laws to force the organization to operate in violation of its religious beliefs.
Since its founding more than half a century ago, New Hope has worked with birthmothers and adoptive parents to place more than 1,000 New York children into permanent homes.
New Hope devotes its efforts exclusively to placing infants and very young children for adoption. It has an extraordinary record of being willing to place, and successfully finding adoptive parents willing to accept, children who are categorized as “hard to place” due to disability, medical condition, race, or other factors.