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FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—A new lawsuit alleges that Vermont blocked two families from fostering children, despite the state’s foster care system crisis, because the families held traditional, religious views on gender and sexuality.Brian and Kaitlyn Wuoti and Michael and Rebecca Gantt accused the Vermont Department for Children and Families of mandating an “ideological position at the expense of children” in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. Both Brian Wuoti and Michael Gantt are pastors, and both families hold traditional, Christian religious views....“Although the Wuotis and Gantts have adopted five children between them, the Department has determined they are unfit to foster or adopt any child solely due to their religiously inspired and widely held belief that girls cannot become boys or vice versa,” the filing (embedded in the article) states....The Wuoti parents, inspired by their Christian faith, decided to answer the state’s call to help vulnerable children and first became foster parents in 2014. The lawsuit describes how they “adopted two precious brothers who have become an integral part of their family.”The Gantt parents, who have four biological children, began fostering in 2016. They have since adopted three “beautiful children,” as the lawsuit says, noting that they “have a heart for children with fetal alcohol syndrome and those born addicted to drugs.”
Between them, the families have not only established records of success in fostering at-risk children, they have also adopted five of them along the way. And that's a good thing too, as Olohan reports, because Vermont is practically begging for families to open their homes to children in state custody -- especially with the uptick in drug addiction in recent years. It had gotten so bad last year that Vermont government agencies went out and campaigned for more families to enter the program, as they had been forced to leave children in emergency rooms and police stations to live.