Elections come and go, but Supreme Court decisions can last forever. One of those potentially pivotal cases is before the court Wednesday. A case both poignant and profound, it pits the rights of a city to enforce its anti-discrimination policies in contracting against the rights of religious groups.
On one side is the City of Philadelphia, which contracts with private foster care agencies, and as part of the contract requires that those agencies abide by the city’s ban on discriminating against LGBTQ couples. On the other side is Catholic Social Services, which contends that complying with the city’s requirement would violate its constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.
Philadelphia has protective custody of about 5,000 children who have been abused or neglected. The city contracts with private agencies to care for these children in group homes and to certify, supervise, and place children in individual foster care homes. Among the 30 private agencies that do this work is CSS, affiliated with the Catholic archdiocese, which has contracted with the city for these services for more than 50 years.
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