Catholic Social Services filed the case against Philadelphia when the city decided to force the organization to place foster and adoptive children in homes with homosexual parents. But the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that the organization can practice its faith when making those placements.
"I think the fact that this was a 9-0 unanimous decision shows that the Constitution is very much on the side of the religious liberty of faith-based organizations that shouldn't have to shut down just because they won't line up and salute to the latest cultural whims," responds Ashley McGuire of The Catholic Association.
She says the LGBT agenda should not be considered superior to constitutional protections for the religious freedom of foster/adoption organizations that aim to maintain their long-standing, firmly-held religious beliefs.
"These activists basically tried to force them out of the foster and adoption care space because of those beliefs," McGuire asserts. "The true losers would have been the vulnerable children who are by the hundreds of thousands waiting to be placed in loving homes by those agencies."
In fact, approximately 400,000 children are currently on that list.
LGBT activists have managed to shut down Catholic adoption organizations that refused to trade their religious beliefs and practices for accommodating the left in Boston, San Francisco, and Illinois. So Kent Ostrander of The Family Foundation of Kentucky says this decision's impact reaches beyond Philadelphia's city limits.
"We do believe it applies to the current controversy here in Kentucky dealing with Sunrise Children's Services, the Baptist foster care system," he tells One News Now. "The governor is refusing to renew their contract, [but] we think that this gives them the upper hand in the ongoing discussions."
Previous governors have signed off on the Baptist organization, but not Governor Andy Bashear (D).
OstranderOstrander says the children are the ones the governor should be considering, "particularly given the fact that if somebody shuts down a foster care place, that's that many more children that are not being cared for. So when Philadelphia did it, or as our governor tries to do it, he's not putting the children's interests first."
The family advocate adds that each Christian organization must operate on the basis of the biblical truths to which they adhere, and he deems it un-American to require them to change that fundamental element of their work.
