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Commentary

Children’s National Hospital Attacked This Family’s Faith but Only Made It Stronger

August 28, 2024

When distressed parents brought their autistic, teenage son to Children’s National Hospital (CNH) after an incident of self-harm, staff at the hospital decided the real problem was the parents’ biblical beliefs about human sexuality. They refused to release the child (pseudonymously named “John Doe III” in a recent lawsuit) unless his parents changed their beliefs, reported them to Child Protective Services (CPS), and still control the boy nearly three years later.

Relations between CNH staff at the boy’s parents deteriorated rapidly. The day after he was admitted under his given name, a CNH therapist called him a different name when she contacted the boy’s father, “John Doe II,” he told The Washington Stand. The father sought to set the record straight, “I don’t know this name. We don’t call him by that name. It would be respectful for you to just call him by his given name.”

“She flat out told me, ‘No,’” Doe II recalled. “And from that point forward, they were pretty much hostile toward us.”

Persecution by Extortion

A week into what was supposed to be a three-day hospital stay to stabilize Doe III, hospital staff held a virtual “family meeting” with the parents where they berated the family’s Christian therapist and endeavored to argue them out of their religious beliefs.

“They must have found out that [John Doe III] at one point was a Bible Bee champion,” said his father, because “they started attacking us religiously, even to the point where they called our religion a danger … to him. Essentially, I guess, [they said], if you believe in Christ, it’s a danger to him. Thankfully, by that point, we had started recording, so we were able to capture some of those things on tape.”

“They claimed that they were people of faith, too,” Doe II continued. “They wanted us to essentially [adopt] this ‘new’ Christianity, I guess one that’s tolerant of … all these changes that someone can make to their body.” If they had questions about this unfamiliar new doctrine, the hospital’s transgender-identifying chaplain would gladly answer them, they were told.

Mr. and Mrs. John Doe II make no claim to be theological experts. They are ordinary Christians trying to live faithful lives according to God’s holy word. “We’re believers in the Savior,” said Doe II. “I don’t know any better way to put it.” Oh, if only more people would make this their highest ambition!

Because the Does knew God’s word, they had more wisdom than their enemies and more understanding than their would-be teachers (Psalm 119:98-99). They knew that the CNH staff were asking them to do something that contradicted God’s word.

“They asked us to stop reading Bible passages that had anything to do with gender,” added Doe II. “So, you know, no Adam and Eve; no Abraham and Sarah; no Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, in other words … [as] one of the provisions to get our son back, [we would’ve had] to stop reading our Bibles.”

“I have other sons,” Doe II said, “and I’m not going to raise my sons — if the Bible tells me that you are fearfully and wonderfully made [Psalm 139:14], I’m [not] going to tell you, ‘Oh, no, you weren’t; you have to change who you are.’ Of course not. If he made male and female [Genesis 1:27], to me it would be blasphemy to call you something other than what he calls you.”

“It wasn’t clear exactly what it is they were asking us … but they wanted us to believe in their faith, and we wouldn’t do it,” Doe II declared. “We weren’t going to go to this transgender chaplain, and we weren’t going to abandon our Bible.”

Who knows how many graduate degrees the hospital arrayed against this Christian couple, but no amount of academic sophistry could shake them off the Rock, who is Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). Yet again, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27).

Persecution by Investigation

The Does’ trial was not over yet — not nearly. “While [John Doe III] was still in the hospital, [the staff] would ask us these probing questions that we felt were irrelevant. And it took me a little while to realize [that] what they were trying to do was find some reason to come out to my other children,” Doe II related. “We had two other sons that we had to protect.”

“We homeschool all of our children,” Doe II explained. “It is important to train your children in, not only your faith, but also just the way to live in life … because that’s the only place they’re going to get any solid moral value.”

When Doe II tried to get his son transferred to a more reasonable hospital for a second opinion, CNH hurriedly filed a bogus CPS report against the Does, which led to CPS taking custody of John Doe III and placing him in foster care.

“They essentially had us in court for I think the better part of the year, if not over a year,” Doe II recalled. “We had to go to two separate courts: CPS court and an administrative court. … They made us get separate lawyers. We couldn’t have the same lawyer. I still don’t understand that.”

The hospital’s litigious stalling tactic “pretty much drained all of our funds,” said Doe II. “They tried to bankrupt us.” He and his wife had to sell the restaurant franchise they owned. They had to sell their house. They had to move out of state to somewhere with a lower cost of living. All of this because they refused the hospital’s demand to raise their children contrary to the teachings of Scripture.

In addition to the financial injury, the Does also had to endure the stigma of being investigated by CPS — a status that implies they had failed at a fundamental duty. Sadly, there are some genuinely bad parents, which is why CPS exists in the first place.

Persecution by Injustice

However, the CPS investigation found no wrongdoing in the conduct of Mr. and Mrs. Doe II. In fact, they proved to be such exemplary parents that CPS made her “closing argument on our behalf. It was so great. It was better than our own lawyers,” Doe II exclaimed. Somehow, the judge still decided to leave John Doe III in the foster care system — a notoriously poor environment — rather than return him to a loving, stable, two-parent home. It may sound incredible, “but that’s ultimately what happened. We were cleared, but they still kept him,” Doe II said ruefully.

Besides their bleak financial situation, Mr. and Mrs. Doe II resolved to exhaust every legal remedy in fighting for their son. “We went to the [Washington, D.C.] Office of Human Rights [OHR], and they tried to throw our case out the first time,” Doe II recalled. “To us it seemed like OHR was in their [CNH’s] pocket somehow.”

“We tried to charge them with everything that they’d done … to us. They tried to throw it out saying that we didn’t state any grievance. So, we redid it and … finally they accepted one grievance, which was … [that] we didn’t get religious accommodations,” he said.

The hospital volunteered to submit to mediation, but “apparently that was just a tactic to find out what information we had,” said Doe II. “They never did that mediation that they volunteered for, and so now OHR is supposedly forcing them to do the mediation with us.” However, after two years of legal wrangling, that mediation has not even been scheduled; it was supposed to be scheduled after 45 days.

In addition, the Does filed a lawsuit, which included “everything that [the OHR] dismissed.” The hospital quickly moved to seal the lawsuit, and the Does are appealing that decision.

Comfort in Affliction

Throughout the years-long ordeal, Mr. and Mrs. Doe II found comfort and encouragement from “a friend group of believers that did come around and support us,” Doe II described. “We ended up having Bible studies with them on a weekly basis,” which were “just great, great places of learning. I can actually watch and see how everyone … grew closer to the Most High.”

Believers never know how their compassionate presence may help brothers and sisters through trials, nor how they themselves may be helped. “We felt grateful because we knew that there were people out here that didn’t lose their faith, and they would stand strong and stand firm,” Doe II said. “Those folks have certainly helped us in our faith to grow. And I believe that this has also helped them.”

Doe II said these friends “still call us, encourage us, and let us know that they’re praying for us since we moved.” One lady prays for them daily and sends his wife a text after she finishes. Others in the friend group also pray for them regularly.

The comfort from fellow believers walks arm in arm with the comfort from God himself. “We’re really not that strong. If not for the Holy Spirit, we would have crumbled,” reflected Doe II. “The Holy Spirit has just been good to us. He’s kept us [through] all the crying nights, the trials and tribulations, dealing with children wondering when their brother was coming home and the hurt in their eyes.”

May this family’s story serve to glorify the name of the “God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

Missing in Action

However, one missing element in Mr. and Mrs. Doe II’s experience is the presence of a local church to come around them and comfort them.

“The church as a whole, we didn’t bring it to them,” said Doe II, out of a desire to protect his other children. “Not everybody that’s in the church is solid in their faith. And I didn’t want this to be something that was brought down on him or my other sons … in the months or years to come.

“We were very leery about bringing other people into the circle because we didn’t know how many people we could trust anymore,” he added. “Too many people that were either on board with the [transgender] agenda or were afraid to fight back against it. And we couldn’t be aligned with people who were either against us or in some way were being cowardly.”

“I think that we were justified in that [decision] because, as we went along, there were friends — or people who we thought were friends — who fell right down into that agenda with LGBTQ, and pretty much turned their backs on us, not knowing the whole story,” Doe II said.

This is a sad commentary on the state of the church. It almost staggers the mind to believe such a damning report, but I’m sure Mr. Doe II knew more about his church’s social situation than I do. Churches are not immune to sin, since they are filled with sinners (Revelation 2-3). But churches are supposed to be “of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (Philippians 2:2).

“I’m not accusing the church,” Doe II clarified. “I’m just talking about individuals who could have been a part of the church.” Yet the church’s culture is fostered and shepherded from the pulpit. If a pastor preaches clearly from Scripture about human sexuality and other clear moral issues, members of the church will not remain confused about what the Bible says on those issues. If they disagree, there are plenty of other pulpits to suit them.

“Stories like this one underscore the importance of preaching the whole counsel of God’s word,” David Closson, director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “We don’t need to guess what God’s view is on so many of these contested issues related to sexuality because He has revealed it to us.”

“Pastors can serve their congregations well by applying God’s word to these issues,” Closson advised. “Over time, consistent and faithful preaching and teaching will have the effect of catechizing a congregation to think more biblically about these and other topics.”

Even without the strength of a church community around them, Mr. and Mrs. Doe II showed faithful courage in the face of intense pressure to conform their beliefs to the surrounding culture — even valuing their allegiance to God’s word over seeing their own son restored to them. This is the price of following Jesus (Luke 14:26).

The Savior in whom they believe once said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12).

Mr. and Mrs. John Doe II, blessed are you.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.



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