Vale widow sues state over adoption stopped by her views on children’s gender

Jessica Bates, the widowed Vale mother of five, moved last year to adopt two more children.

She filed the necessary state paperwork.

She prepared for the required home inspection.

And she completed the state-mandated training.

But what she heard in that training is now emerging into a test of religious freedom in the face of state laws and rules, a fresh battleground over gender identity.

Bates, in an email to a state official last August,…