TOPEKA, Kansas (LifeSiteNews) – Kansas Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed legislation Monday to prevent the state from forcing foster parents to affirm LGBT ideology, although the bill’s supporters remain optimistic about the chances of overriding her.
HB 2311 would forbid the Kansas Department for Children from making it a condition of licensing or child placement that foster parents “affirm, accept or support any governmental policy regarding sexual orientation or gender identity that may conflict with the person’s sincerely held religious or moral beliefs.” It passed 31-9 in the Kansas Senate and 84-38 in the House.
“The top priority of the Kansas Department for Children and Families should be adhering to the ‘best interest of the child’ standard. Legislation like this detracts from this standard and stands in the way of best serving those in the child welfare system,” Kelly declared in her veto message. “Children in need of care already face unique and complex challenges. I will not sign legislation that could further complicate their lives. I also have concerns that this bill could expose the state to frivolous lawsuits and hinder the agency by taking time and resources away from critical services.”
In response, Republican Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins issued a joint statement declaring that “this veto cannot stand.”
“Our foster care system depends on strong and stable families to care for the children in our system,” the GOP leaders said. “The last thing any administration should be doing is discriminating against qualified families due to their religious or moral beliefs. It’s perplexing that the governor would choose to veto legislation that would ensure First Amendment protections extend to foster parents.”
Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins today released the following joint statement reacting to the governor’s veto of HB 2311:
View the full statement below ↓#ksleg pic.twitter.com/P9oMComnMz
— Dan Hawkins (@DanHawkinsKS) April 7, 2025
In February, Kansas Republicans successfully overrode Kelly’s veto of a bill prohibiting transgender drugs and surgeries on minors, with the same number of “yes” votes in each chamber as HB 2311 received, indicating another override is equally viable.
Conservatives and pro-family advocates say Democrats’ devotion to all aspects of transgender ideology has come at the cost of a wide array of harms, not only to the physical and mental health of gender-confused individuals themselves but also to the rights, health, and safety of those who disagree, such as parents denied a say in their children’s upbringing or even knowledge of their trauma, girls and women forced to share intimate facilities with males, female athletes forced to compete against biological males with natural physical advantages, and individuals forced to affirm false sexual identities in violation of their consciences, their understanding of scientific fact, and/or their religious beliefs lest they risk firing and/or social ostracization.
This agenda is firmly out of step with the general electorate, as affirmed by numerous recent polls and election results. Sixty-six percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding for gender transitions, according to a recent Cygnal poll, and Pew Research finds that 66% support limiting athletic participation to actual members of a team’s designated sex, 56% support prohibiting transition procedures on minors, and 53% oppose forcing insurance companies to cover transition services.
In fact, exit polling by the pro-Democrat firm Blueprint found that the statement “Kamala Harris is focused more on cultural issues like transgender issues rather than helping the middle class” was the third-biggest reason for why overall voters chose not to vote for her, and the number one reason why swing voters rejected her and voted for Donald Trump instead last November.
