Lydia and Heath Marvin are a family with three teenagers and a long history of caring for the littlest children. Since 2020 they have opened their home to eight foster children under the age of four, and they have publicly refused a Department of Children & Families LGBTQIA+ Non-Discrimination Policy. Their choice has put faith and state rules on a collision course that raises urgent questions about conscience, caregiving, and the role of Scripture in public life.
To speak plainly: Christians who care for children do not leave their faith at the door. The Marvins’ refusal grew out of a conviction that God’s design for human identity is not negotiable. For many believers, honoring that conviction while serving vulnerable kids is not optional, it is the core of what it means to love and protect.
Foster care is meant to shelter children and help them thrive, yet it is also a crossroads where beliefs and policies meet. Agencies create rules they say protect children, but when those rules require affirmation of ideas that conflict with biblical teaching, families face a wrenching choice. The tension is real and personal for Christians who feel called to both obey God and serve their neighbors.
Why Faith And Conscience Matter
Scripture calls Christians to act with mercy, to protect the weak, and to speak truth in love, and that shapes how many faith-based carers behave. For the Marvins, refusing to affirm gender ideology is not an act of hatred, it is an act of obedience rooted in a biblical anthropology. When conscience and contract collide, believers often surrender contracts rather than surrender conscience.
This is not merely a private headache; it is a public issue about whether people can serve in public roles without abandoning their deepest convictions. If faith-based convictions are excluded from public life, many competent and loving carers will be pushed out. That outcome would harm children who benefit from homes grounded in moral clarity and consistent teaching.
There is also a pastoral reality here: children need trustworthy adults who will not send them mixed messages about identity and purpose. Christian caregivers believe that consistency matters for forming secure children, especially the very young. When policies demand affirmation of contested ideas, caregivers worry about the long-term spiritual and emotional effects on children in their care.
The Marvins’ situation is an invitation to ask how society balances two goods: protecting kids and respecting conscience. A compassionate society should find ways to let people serve without forcing them to violate core convictions. Compromise does not mean abandoning truth; it means crafting fair systems that keep kids safe while honoring sincere moral disagreement.
Practical solutions exist: clear conscience protections, room for referrals, and partnerships with organizations that share similar convictions can preserve both child welfare and religious freedom. These steps require political courage and a willingness to put children above ideology. Churches and communities can also mobilize to provide homes so that vulnerable kids never lack a safe, loving place to grow.
The Marvins are not a case in isolation; they represent a larger struggle over who shapes the moral contours of public life. Christians are called to steward the vulnerable, and many will keep caring even when it costs them. That willingness to sacrifice is exactly why religious conscience should be taken seriously in policy debates over foster care.
What happens next will matter for families, agencies, and, most of all, children. The call is simple: protect kids, respect conscience, and create systems that allow the faithful to serve without capitulation. In a society that values both freedom and mercy, we can and must do better.