Indiana Catholic couple asks Supreme Court to hear custody case for transgender children | National Catholic Register

An Indiana Catholic couple is asking the Supreme Court to hear their case after the state government removed their child from their home after he began identifying as “transgender.”

Mary and Jeremy Cox refused to accept their son's self-identified female identity in 2019 and instead sought therapy to address what they believed were underlying mental health issues.

The Indiana government began investigating the Cox family in 2021 after learning that they refused to address their son by the identity he chose. The government then removed her son from their home and placed him in another home that “affirmed” his transgender beliefs.

The state government then dropped abuse allegations against the couple, but still argued that the “disagreement over gender identity” was distressing for the child and contributed to an ongoing eating disorder. Later court rulings upheld the decision not to keep the child in the Coxes' care.

On Thursday, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty announced that Mary and Jeremy Cox had filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to “hold the state accountable for keeping their child away from home.” .

“Every parent is afraid of that. “We love our son and wanted to care for him, but the state of Indiana took away that opportunity by removing him from our home and prohibiting us from discussing gender issues with him,” the parents said in the release.

“We hope the judges will accept our case and save other parents from having to endure the nightmare we experienced.”

In their filing, the petitioners noted that Indiana “thought the parents were fit but still removed the child because of an ideological dispute.”

“Despite finding all allegations of abuse and neglect unfounded, Indiana refused to return [the child] at home, thereby “substituting the state’s judgment for the judgment of recognized healthy parents,” the filing states.

“If this can happen in Indiana, it can happen anywhere,” Lori Windham, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, said in the group’s news release. “To tear a child away from loving parents because of religious beliefs shared by millions of Americans is a violation of the law, parental rights and basic human decency.”

“If the Supreme Court doesn’t take this case, how many more times will this happen to other families?”

The filing called the dispute “of national importance” and argued that Indiana's actions conflict with Supreme Court precedents on free speech and religious freedom.

“In the midst of this tense situation in which the lives of real children and families are at stake, this court should grant this motion and affirm its precedents on the right of able-bodied parents to custody of their children,” the filing states.