New Hope Family Services, which describes itself as a Christian adoption agency licensed by New York State to provide adoption services, has won a preliminary injunction to block New York’s Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) from closing the agency because of its refusal to provide services to married same-sex couples. New Hope Family Services, Inc. v. Poole, 2020 WL 5887296, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 183926 (N.D.N.Y., October 5, 2020).
New Hope sued … <Read More>
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, based in New York, has revived a Syracuse religious adoption agency’s constitutional challenge to the New York Office of Children and Family Service (OCFS) regulation prohibiting discrimination because of marital status or sexual orientation by adoption agencies. New Hope insists, based on its religious principles, that it cannot provide adoption services to unmarried people or same-sex couples. OCFS threatened to terminate New Hope’s status as an … <Read More>
U.S. District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino has rejected a Christian social welfare agency’s bid to be exempted from complying with non-discrimination regulations promulgated by the New York Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS). Ruling on May 16 in New Hope Family Services, Inc. v. Poole, 2019 WL 2138355, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2138355 (N.D.N.Y.), the court rejected a variety of constitutional arguments advances by the plaintiff in support of its claim of a … <Read More>