Religion · Statewide · WA · September 28, 2026
9th Circuit to Rehear Washington Foster Care Religious Liberty Case
What Alinsky tactic is being used
2 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 8
“Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions.”
Washington has changed its ground at every stage rather than its goal: it first won dismissal, then after the Ninth Circuit revived the suit and the district court enjoined enforcement of the Law Against Discrimination against the Yakima mission, it argued the mission had no standing because the state promised not to sue over an IT technician — while, as Judge Bumatay noted, declining to say what it would do about cashiers, cooks or nurses. After losing unanimously before a three-judge panel on January 6, 2026, it obtained rehearing en banc on June 18, 2026, which vacated that win. Same pressure, new tactic each time, against a shelter that has to fund a lawyer for every round.
Counter-Rule 8 · Institutional Resilience
Decide in advance, in writing, what the institution will and will not concede — so exhaustion cannot make the decision for it.
Institutional resilience means writing the answer down before the next round starts. This month, ask your church or ministry board to put in the minutes which paid positions it considers religious and why, and to attach the statement of faith to the job descriptions and employment agreements — so the question is settled on a calm day, not in a deposition. Decide in writing what would never be conceded (who may be hired) and what is genuinely administrative, and keep dated copies of both.
Rule 13
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
The fight is not being waged against ministries in general but against one frozen target: a 1936 homeless mission in Yakima, whose shelter beds, meals and clinic now depend on an appellate docket number. The state's position has been amplified by outside amici — including a multistate attorneys-general brief urging rehearing — which turns one small ministry into the isolated face of 'a right to discriminate.'
Counter-Rule 13 · Radical Solidarity
Stand publicly with whoever has been singled out. Isolation is the whole mechanism; refusing it disarms the tactic.
Refuse the isolation the way the amici already have: Becket filed for the Aleph Institute, a Jewish organization, and other briefs came from the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty and Liberty University. An ordinary member can read one of those public briefs, give directly to the Yakima mission's shelter and meal work rather than only to the litigation, and when the case comes up locally describe it accurately — a shelter hiring its own believers — instead of repeating the foster-care framing that is not what this case is about.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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