The New Supreme Court’s First LGBT+ Case Is Set For Right After Election Day
October 30, 2020The next landmark case for LGBT+ right before the Supreme Court of the United States will be heard the day after Election Day.
The Court in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia will rule on the question of whether religious foster care agencies have a First Amendment right to refuse to work with LGBT+ people. It would also be one of the first cases that Amy Coney Barrett presides over as a Supreme Court justice.
Fulton v. City of Philadelphia is a case that has thousands of organisations and politicians choosing sides because “there are lots of potential consequences.”
Fulton v. Philadelphia is the last of five cases being argued before the court next week, Barrett’s first full week. Exact details of her participation, if they have been finalised, have not been announced.
“There are lots of potential consequences here,” Louise Melling, Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said.
The case in question involves the Catholic Social Services (CSS), associated with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, losing its city contract in 2018. After an article highlighted two organisations that refused to refer LGBT+ couples or single parents as potential adoption homes, the city council issued a directive to Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services to refuse to contract to CSS and the other group, Bethany Christian Services, if they did not reverse their policies.
CSS and two of their foster parents, Sharonell Fulton and Toni Lynn Simms-Busch, filed lawsuits against the city’s decision, after Bethany adhered to Philadelphia’s discrimination rules but CSS refused. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has represented them.
According to ‘LGBTQ Nation’, CSS has admitted to discriminating against same-sex couples, stating that it does not certify same-sex couples as foster parents, even if they are qualified under state law.
The Trump administration’s legal team submitted a brief on behalf of the United States government stating that “governmental action tainted by hostility to religion fails strict scrutiny almost by definition,” supporting CSS and other religious organisations’ right to “religious freedom” across the country.
Philadelphia is joined by two organisations, the Support Center for Child Advocates, which provides legal assistance and advocacy for abused and neglected children in the Philadelphia area, and the LGBT+ organisation Philadelphia Family Pride. They are being led by counsel from the ACLU, among several other lawyers representing them.
The ACLU cites “over 1,000 people” that filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of them, including “child welfare groups, religious organizations, former foster youth, and nearly half of the states and dozens of cities and mayors.” The American Psychological Association, Anti-Defamation League, 24 U.S. Senators and 148 Members of the House are among them.
“The case has implications not only for the future of foster care, but for the protection of all people from discrimination in the alleged name of religion,” the ACLU states.
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