In a stirring depiction of true life events, the new feature film “Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot,” takes viewers inside a small, rural church in East Texas. Devotion drives the congregation’s commitment to achieve the seemingly impossible: adopting all 77 of the county’s foster children.
The emotionally charged film features a pastor in this impoverished community lined with dirt roads who describes the mission as a directive from God — “We can’t just look away,” he implores the audience. It closes with a direct message from Possum Trot’s inspirational characters, Rev. W.C. Martin and his wife Donna. They call on fellow churches to follow their congregants’ lead and take in all of this nation’s 100,000 foster children in need of a permanent home.
But shortly after distributor Angel Studio’s July 4 release, its promotional partner — Ben Shapiro’s conservative media website Daily Wire — spun the film’s feel-good message into an anti-LGTBQ+ tirade. While promoting “Sound of Hope” on opening day, the Daily Wire’s political commentator Matt Walsh described the “heroic effort in the 1990s by a small church community” in Possum Trot, Texas in a series of tweets. But he added: “Today, leftists are trying to stop Christians from saving more children.”
Walsh, who has both mocked and owned up to his moniker as a self-described “theocratic fascist,” went on to rail against efforts to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ foster youth. Walsh pointed to cases in Oregon and Vermont where Christian foster parents have sued child welfare agencies for denying them licenses. The plaintiffs claim they were discriminated against based on their religion because they refused to comply with regulations requiring caregivers to affirm and support children’s sexual and gender identities.
Those rules are encouraged by numerous states and the federal government and supported by studies showing that more than one-third of older foster youth identify as LGBTQ+. Walsh misrepresented those foster parent guidelines, however, and falsely stated that “many states are demanding Christians agree to chemically castrate and sterilize gender-confused kids in order to foster any child in the system.” Walsh added: “Depriving these children of a safe, loving Christian home because the parents won’t further abuse a gender-confused child is a new, unconscionable barrier.”
“If somebody’s religion says that LGBTQ people don’t exist, or that ‘praying the gay away’ works — that’s their point of view. (But) the child welfare system has to be centered in social science and research, and every single piece of that says that kids’ well-being improves when they’re respected for who they are.”
— Currey Cook, Attorney with Lambda Legal
Following the social media posts, “Sound of Hope” executive producer Letitia Wright did not hesitate to push back. The actress, known for her starring role in Disney’s “Black Panther” franchise, expressed shock that the lightning-rod conservative group was involved with the film. Wright posted on Instagram that the Daily Wire was brought on board without her knowledge after production wrapped.
“This film isn’t about politics, it’s about children,” Wright stated. “It’s about sacrificial love for children who have experienced unthinkable horrors and how communities at a grassroots level — like the community of Possum Trot — can help provide the safe, loving homes they so desperately need.”
“Any conversation that detracts from that is unnecessary and harmful. I do not condone using this beautiful film for divisive political purposes,” she said, adding that she is “in no way aligned or affiliated with The Daily Wire.”
Advocates for LGBTQ+ foster youth agree. When asked about the “Sound of Hope” controversy, Currey Cook, an attorney focused on foster care issues for the LGBTQ+ civil rights firm Lambda Legal, said the child welfare system needs to focus on the needs of children over the feelings and beliefs of foster parents.
“If somebody’s religion says that LGBTQ people don’t exist, or that ‘praying the gay away’ works — that’s their point of view,” Cook said. But “the child welfare system has to be centered in social science and research, and every single piece of that says that kids’ well-being improves when they’re respected for who they are.”
In response to the public controversy covered this week by The New York Times, the Hollywood Reporter and others, the husband-wife team that wrote and directed the film defended Walsh and their partnership with the Daily Wire.
“We are deeply grateful for the tireless support of The Daily Wire and its hosts,” filmmakers and foster and adoptive parents Josh and Rebekah Weigel said in a press release. “In the Tweet that started this firestorm, Matt Walsh was standing up for the right of Christians to foster and adopt kids from the foster care system. There are — in fact — real efforts to prevent families of faith from adopting, and this is a pivotal part of the conversation around helping kids who are suffering in a broken system. It’s not about left and right, it’s about right and wrong.”
The “Sound of Hope” film itself does not touch on concerns about the treatment of gay and transgender youth in foster care — who suffer far worse treatment than their peers. LGBTQ+ foster youth are at heightened risk for homelessness and suicidality. They are more likely to be moved frequently or placed in group homes, and less likely to be adopted or reunited with their birth families.
Walsh, a conservative blogger and radio personality who campaigns against transgender rights, claimed without evidence that overrepresentation of LGBTQ+ youth stems from abused and neglected children choosing the identity in response to trauma and a search for love and acceptance. Researchers who have studied LGBTQ+ foster youth attribute their disproportionate numbers in the child welfare system to family rejection and higher rates of abuse.
To better protect them, the federal government and numerous states have enacted policies that prohibit discrimination in foster care, including requiring that foster parents provide welcoming homes. In 2016, an Obama administration rule threatened states’ funding if their child welfare services discriminated against LGBTQ+ people. And this year, the Biden administration implemented a new federal policy that would further strengthen protections and ensure all states offered LGBTQ+ friendly foster homes.
Some state policies also protect LGBTQ+ foster youth, including their rights to be called by preferred names and pronouns, and to be protected from settings where they might be discriminated against, including unwelcoming houses of worship.
But increasingly, a network of conservative and religious organizations has pushed back, supporting lawsuits nationwide that seek legal exemptions for faith-based foster parents. Laws in at least 9 states now permit foster care parents and providers to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people based on their religious convictions. And in December, Republican attorneys general in 19 states sent a joint letter to the Biden administration, opposing its new rule to ensure that all states provide foster homes that are supportive of youth who identify as LGBTQ+.
The issue made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2020. In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, Catholic Social Services successfully argued that faith-based discrimination was protected by the First Amendment. And in an ongoing case from last year, Jessica Bates sued Oregon’s Department of Health Services after being denied a foster parent license because she refused to agree to “respect, accept and support the race, ethnicity, cultural identities, national origin, immigration status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disabilities, spiritual beliefs, and socioeconomic status” of foster youth in her care. During her application process, the conservative Christian Oregonian informed her caseworker that her religious convictions prevented her from supporting “children whose preferred pronouns & identity don’t match their biological sex.”
In nearby Washington, veteran foster parents Jennifer and Shane DeGross sued their state on similar grounds earlier this year. But state officials have doubled down on their protective policies.
“Whether a family accepts or rejects a child’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression has a profound impact on their wellbeing,” a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Children Youth and Families told The Imprint. “In Washington, we are committed to ensuring that these vulnerable children and youth do not experience additional trauma when placed out-of-home into foster care.”
Possum Trot’s home state of Texas has led the way in targeting of LGBTQ+ youth in foster care. The actions include the state Department of Children and Family Services stripping protections for LGTBQ+ youth from its Foster Care Bill of Rights in 2017, and Gov. Greg Abbott declaring four years later that providing children with gender-affirming care was child abuse and ordering their parents be investigated by CPS. That attack on trans youth drew strong rebuke from President Joe Biden, who called the state’s actions “a dangerous and cynical attack.”
“In the United States of America, we respect the rights and dignity of all families. Transgender children bring fulfillment to their parents, joy to their friends and are made in the image of God,” Biden wrote in a White House memo. “Parents who love and affirm their children should be applauded and supported, not threatened, investigated, or stigmatized.”
Such controversy had previously not been publicly discussed in relation to Possum Trot, which inspired the “Sound of Hope” and widespread media coverage decades ago. A 2017 Imprint article described the deeply religious black Baptist community in a mostly white county — a low-income region that at the time had no streetlights, post office or grocery store. Beginning in 1998, dozens of families in town, many from Rev. Martin’s Bennett Chapel, had listened to the spiritual leader’s call and took foster children into their homes.
The efforts were publicized by People Magazine, Oprah and a Fox reality TV show, and multiple researchers studied the community to identify the factors in their success with the adoption project, suggesting Possum Trot could be a model for other rural, faith-based communities.
Some of the former foster youth interviewed by The Imprint spoke highly of their adoption experiences in Possum Trot.
“It’s one of the greatest feelings,” said Terri Martin, who was adopted by W.C. and Donna.”Knowing that you found parents that really love you, that really want you to be a part of their life, want to help you grow, want to help pull you out the struggle.”
But some children had become estranged — one of the Martin’s adopted daughters was no longer in touch with them. And a number of families who were part of the adoption project had left the church.
If any of the 77 children adopted into the Possum Trot community identify as LGBTQ+, that was not mentioned in “Sound of Hope.”
