The Supreme Court has rejected a case involving an Indiana couple who lost custody of their transgender teenage son because they refused to use female pronouns.
The court dismissed the case without offering any explanation or commentary.
As previously reported, Mary and Jeremy Cox, who are Catholic, chose to take their son to therapy in 2019 when he expressed a desire to transition to a girl.
Becket Legal, who is representing the Cox family, explained in a press release, “Because of their religious belief that God creates human beings with immutable sex—male or female—they could not refer to him using pronouns and a name inconsistent with his biology. The Coxes also believed that he needed help for underlying mental health concerns, including an eating disorder.”
“To address both issues, they provided therapeutic care for their child’s gender dysphoria and scheduled appointments with a specialist to help him with the eating disorder. In 2021, Indiana began investigating the Coxes after a report that they were not referring to their child by his preferred gender identity. Indiana then removed the teen from the parents’ custody and placed him in a home that would affirm his preferred identity.”
The state did not discover any signs of abuse but asserted that the couple’s refusal to accept their son’s gender identity was harmful to the child’s mental health.
“If this can happen in Indiana, it can happen anywhere. Tearing a child away from loving parents because of their religious beliefs, which are shared by millions of Americans, is an outrage to the law, parental rights, and basic human decency,” said Lori Windham, vice president and senior counsel at Becket. “If the Supreme Court doesn’t take this case, how many times will this happen to other families?”
In a statement issued in response to the Supreme Court’s decision, the Cox family expressed, “We can’t change the past, but we will continue to fight for a future where parents of faith can raise their children without fear of state officials knocking on their doors.”
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita stated, “We always protect parental rights and religious liberty. Neither we nor the Indiana courts believe that the State can remove a child because of a parent’s religious beliefs, views about gender identity, or anything of the sort.”
Rokita asserted that the teenager’s eating disorder was the basis for the removal.
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