Montana Gov. Gianforte signed HB655, letting foster and adoption agencies opt out of LGBTQ+-inclusive training on religious grounds

On May 1, 2025, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed House Bill 655 into law, prohibiting state agencies and foster-care or adoption-placement entities from treating foster or adoptive parents and applicants as unsuitable, or taking other "discriminatory action" against them, solely because they decline, on religious grounds, to affirm LGBTQ+-inclusive training, agency policies, or a child's gender identity or sexual orientation. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Greg Oblander (R-Billings) and carried in the Senate by Sen. Theresa Manzella (R-Hamilton), passed the House 59-40 and the Senate 29-19.

Supporters, including the Montana Family Foundation, framed the law as protecting religious foster and adoptive families from exclusion by placement agencies. Opponents in the Legislature warned it authorizes agencies to withhold LGBTQ+-inclusive standards of care from children in their custody based on a caregiver's religious objection to the child's identity, and cited the history of religiously-affiliated institutional care of Indigenous children as a cautionary parallel. The law is part of a broader wave of similar religious-exemption foster and adoption bills advancing in multiple states.