Supreme Court rules for Catholic foster care agency in Philadelphia, citing discrimination

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday for Catholic Social Services in its fight over foster care in Philadelphia, holding that city officials discriminated against the church group because of its religious views.

The case posed a clash between religious liberty and gay rights, but the justices — as they have previously when grappling with the same question — found a narrow way to resolve the dispute.

The city of Philadelphia canceled its contract with the Catholic agency after a newspaper reported that the charity would not place a foster child with an unmarried person or same-sex couple. Officials pointed to city ordinances that forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation.

But in Thursday’s decision, justices noted that the city’s contracting rules gave officials the discretion to make exemptions from the ordinance for those who provided needed services.

At least 20 other agencies were ready to work with same-sex couples, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the city’s refusal to give a limited exemption to the Catholic group amounted to religious discrimination that violates the First Amendment.

“CSS seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else,” he wrote in Fulton vs. City of Philadelphia. “We have never suggested that the government may discriminate against religion when acting in its managerial role,” he added.

Roberts noted the city’s commitment to equal treatment, including for LGBTQ residents and children in need of foster care.

“We do not doubt that this interest is a weighty one, for ‘our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth,’” he wrote, quoting a passage in the 2018 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado.

There too the court ruled narrowly in favor of a claim of religious discrimination brought by a cake maker who had refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

The limited scope of Thursday’s ruling may explain why the court’s three liberal justices joined Roberts in making the decision unanimous.