The ruling was unanimous.…
For the nations highest court?
Religious beliefs seem prevail over secular laws….
And the concept of Gay “Rights’ could be in trouble from this court ….
The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled that Philadelphia may not bar a Catholic agency that refused to work with same-sex couples from screening potential foster parents.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for six members of the court, said that since the city allowed exceptions to its policies for some other agencies it must also do so in this instance. The Catholic agency, he wrote, “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.”
The decision, in the latest clash between anti-discrimination principles and claims of conscience, was a setback for gay rights and further evidence that religious groups almost always prevail in the current court.
Philadelphia stopped placements with the agency, Catholic Social Services, after a 2018 article in The Philadelphia Inquirer described its policy against placing children with same-sex couples. The agency and several foster parents sued the city, saying the decision violated their First Amendment rights to religious freedom and free speech….
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Last year, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., appeared to urge the court to reconsider the 2015 decision that established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges, saying it stigmatized people of faith who objected to those unions.
In his majority opinion in the Obergefell decision, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who retired in 2018, called for “an open and searching debate” on same-sex marriage, writing that “the First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered.”
Note…
The courts justices seems to see this whole issue as a denying the Church its “Right’ to object to what it does not believe in….
That ‘Right’ COULD supersede the governments efforts to provide ‘Right’s’ to all its citizens?