San Francisco board of supervisors passed a resolution last March criticizing a Vatican directive forbidding Catholic Charities from placing children in need of adoption with gay couples.
Catholic organization sued. Federal judge dismissed.
We don't normally follow district court activity outside the Seventh circuit, so we would have missed this one if not for Prof. Arthur Leonard, whose law blog is Leonard Link.
Catholic League for Religious & Civil Liberties v. City & County of San Francisco (N.Dist.Cal. Nov. 30, 2006) began like this:
The new pope gave his old job, enforcer of conformity with dogma (formerly known as the Inquisition -- not making that up), to the former archbishop of San Francisco, who got promoted to cardinal. The cardinal ordered Catholic Charities not to let gay couples adopt. When the supervisors adopted their resolution, calling the order "discriminatory, defamatory, and hateful," the Catholic organization brought suit in Federal court, alleging violation of the Establishment Clause.
Judge Marilyn Hall Patel (of Napster-case and Korematsu fame) kicked the case.
T.P.S.M. doesn't have Westlaw, and the opinion can't be found on the district court website, but this seems to be the gist (again, thanks to Prof. Leonard & corporate media):
*There's a First-Amendment issue, but not the establishment clause; the resolution amounts to free speech by duly-elected office-holders;
*The resolution does not unconstitutionally take sides in a religious controversy, but has a primarily secular purpose;
*The resolution is a one-shot deal, not the establishment of a regulatory regime intruding into religion.
Tags: Church and state, law, policy, Constitutional law, First Amendment, Establishment Clause, Catholicism, faith, sacredness, skepticism, homophobia, LGBT, gay, lesbian, queer, gay adoption, Christian right.
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