Justices Sidestep Catholics' Case Against San Francisco

By Daniel Burke
Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) The Supreme Court on Monday (May 2) declined to hear a Catholic group's appeal accusing San Francisco supervisors of violating the Constitution when they disparaged the Catholic Church's opposition to gay adoptions.

The refusal lets stand last year's ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said the New York-based Catholic League had failed to prove that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors' resolution applies to them in a "direct and concrete manner."

As usual, the Supreme Court did not comment on its refusal to hear the appeal, but Catholic League President Bill Donohue said his suit was still successful in some ways.

"While we lost in terms of implanting a legal marker, I do think a cultural marker has been made," he said. "We haven't seen the same kind of vitriol directed at the Catholic Church. A message has been sent."

In 2006, San Francisco supervisors passed a resolution calling on the local archdiocese and its charitable programs to allow same-sex couples to adopt children.

The nonbinding resolution called it "an insult to all San Franciscans when a foreign country, like the Vatican, meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great city's existing and established customs and traditions."

The resolution also strongly denounced Cardinal William Levada's statement that allowing gay couples to adopt would mean "doing violence to these children."

Donohue said he would not have brought suit if the supervisors had simply said they disagree with the Catholic Church. "But they had to go that extra step. The language they used was hateful. We think they crossed a line."

Comments

[LMPE]

10:28 PM on 05/05/2011

The Catholic League sues San Francisco.

Is the Catholic League trying to turn itself into a joke or something?

Oh, wait. It already IS a joke!

[Jason Ryberg]

07:26 PM on 05/05/2011

Fundamentalist clerics like Donahue hate anybody and everybody they disagree with. Why can't we hate him and his followers back? To hell with them. They have devoted their lives to making the lives of many of their fellow Americans as unpleasant and uncomfortable as possible.

[desertdweller]

04:28 PM on 05/05/2011

Bill Donahue is a Catholic jihadist.

[schnauzergirl]

02:38 PM on 05/05/2011

"The language they (SF supervisors) used was hateful. We think they crossed a line."

Has Donohue ever read anything put out by his church? You want to talk about hatefull and crossing a line (of common decency).

[LintLass]

06:38 PM on 05/05/2011

Never mind his church.. How about himself, personally? :)

Hel, they're *suing* cause they were criticized for calling gay families 'violence against children.'

[Jerry Bourbon]

02:19 PM on 05/05/2011

Curious. I did not here about any Catholics rioting in the streets, nor did I here of supervisors being beheaded.

OOOPS! We are dealing with Catholics here, not followers of certain other religions...

[boomer7391]

12:15 PM on 05/05/2011

hey rome
stay out of american affairs
no one needs your input thank you

another reason churches should pay their fair share of taxes
thieves all of them

[BurtonDesque]

09:03 AM on 05/05/2011

Bill Donahue gives Catholicism a bad name. And that's saying something.

[thunk]

06:14 AM on 05/05/2011

Jeff Rosenbury:
"The Supreme Court recently let stand a lower court ruling allowing the city of San Francisco to pass a resolution about religious issues. This doesn't seem right to me, but it is now the law."

Seems to me you're over-reading this.

"The refusal lets stand last year's ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said the New York-based Catholic League had failed to prove that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors' resolution applies to them in a 'direct and concrete manner.'"

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems clear that no new precedent has been set. It's a technicality.

[Jeff Rosenbury]

11:26 AM on 05/05/2011

It's a technicality that allows city governments to weigh in on religious issues and foreign policy issues, both of which are at least discouraged by the constitution.

I find it odd that the ninth circus should suddenly be all in favor of government involvement in religion after decades of forbidding any hint of Christianity in government. It's clear that to this court Christianity, not religious entanglement, is the enemy.

And claiming the resolution has no direct bearing on someone who is referenced by name is just cheesy. The judges should be ashamed.

[bjlloyd1]

11:23 PM on 05/04/2011

I like this approach—calling it a foreign government controlling American citizens rather than being outright anti-Catholic. Very smooth, though quite valid. That's what Catholics get for having an official country, I suppose.

[Jeff Rosenbury]

11:47 PM on 05/04/2011

Normally I'm a State's rights sort of guy. But even the most conservative reading of the constitution doesn't give states, let alone cities, the right to conduct their own foreign policy. That power is reserved for the executive branch with the consent of the senate.

[bjlloyd1]

12:47 AM on 05/05/2011

I don't see the ruling as "foreign policy" in the normal sense; it's simply saying that "no foreign government (i.e. the Vatican, through Catholicism) has the right to control what we do in this city/county/state/country." Which seems to me to be a terribly obvious thing to say.

[Bob Kellerman]

09:23 PM on 05/04/2011

SO MANY IGNORANT COMMENTS

Completely failing to understand the City -- in which Catholicism is by far the largest religion.

MORMON AND CATHOLIC TRICKS ON THE PUBLIC PASSED PROP 8
--- not honest objection to Gay Marriage. Many people in California, including parents who were duped, will never forgive the gutter tactics

[LJIESQ]

05:42 PM on 05/04/2011

Donohue, don't you ever get tired of being wrong?

[BlueIndependent]

04:29 PM on 05/04/2011

Well shucks. Two people who happen to be government employees express disdain for ignorance, and sentiments for a more open society that is inclusive of homosexuals. Seems to me they are upholding the spirit of the Constitution quite well.

[Angie Tyne 1]

04:18 PM on 05/05/2011

"...disdain for ignorance...more open society..."

Yeah, but you can see how the religious might be offended by those concepts? ;)

[Jeff Rosenbury]

04:27 PM on 05/04/2011

Dear City Council Member:

The Supreme Court recently let stand a lower court ruling allowing the city of San Francisco to pass a resolution about religious issues. This doesn't seem right to me, but it is now the law.

Since you now have this new power I would urge you to pass a resolution supporting the Christian views on love and compassion.

Further it would not be unreasonable to promulgate this resolution by requiring it to be posted in the public record and read to public school children.

This seems an end run around decades of case law prohibiting schools from favoring religion. Yet how can the courts rule differently now? Will they stop laws from being taught in schools?

No, they will be forced to reconsider this issue and do it right this time.

Thank you for considering this.

[marind]

07:16 PM on 05/04/2011

You are clearly confused by the concept.

When a church tries to dictate the rights of American citizens - even to the point of denying a home to abandoned children - it is the duty of the government to call that conduct what it is - hateful. Your post wants the government to approve one religion over another.

This is really very simple.

[Jeff Rosenbury]

11:25 PM on 05/04/2011

So it's o.k. to oppose one religion over another, but not approve one religion over another? That doesn't sit very well with the wording of the First Amendment.

[Bob Kellerman]

09:18 PM on 05/04/2011

Dear Jeff who cannot read, and cannot hear a FAIR CRITICISM --

San Francisco Board of Supervisors (there is no city council) reacted to the
HATEFUL AND DISGUSTING STATEMENT OF THE CARDINAL IN KIND
--- perhaps they should have been more temperate, but he was vile, just like the TV commercials the mormons got the catholics to co-operate in.

San Francisco is a heavily Catholic city, with lots of Irish, Italians, and Mexican Americans, but it is a very tolerant city, whose citizens were outraged by the crap that came out of your church and the mormons --- shattering the Commandment about False Witness

THE REASON THE CHURCHES HATE THE GAY IS THAT THEY DO NOT WANT THEIR BOATS ROCKED, THEY NEED TO KEEP POWER AND MONEY FLOWING.

The EVIL catholic church in California could improve the lives of its Latino members (several million) by preaching for parents to turn on Sesame Street, etc, in English
--- but English speakers tend to assimilate more and leave the church

[Jeff Rosenbury]

11:41 PM on 05/04/2011

The Catholic church I know held a "couples ceremony" for two women in a parish I was in ten years ago. The parish then helped them adopt a little girl. We bent over backwards to be "inclusive".

If I seem a little skeptical of this behavior now, it's because this couple, who had lived together monogamously for twenty years, broke up six months later. Yes, our including them in our loving community was bad for their relationship. I don't know why.

We feed the hungry. We clothe the Naked. We visit prisoners. We bring justice to a world that knew very little of it before we came. We even reach out to people who are gay (as opposed to "gays" as a political movement). In return you call us evil.

You accuse people who spend their lives helping the poor and living on a dollar a day of being power and money hungry. You accuse a people who every week listen to leaders calling us to "rock our boats" of sitting around trying to keep the world from changing. You accuse the largest non-public school system in the world of encouraging ignorance.

I have a name for people who call what is good, evil. I call them liberals.

[Jeff Rosenbury]

12:28 AM on 05/05/2011

Once again my attempt at a well reasoned response was moderated to the bit bucket, so:

No you!

[Bueno Hombre]

04:25 PM on 05/04/2011

I wish they spent as much time and energy fighting for the homeless, the hungry, and those without health care as they do fighting homosexuals and those seeking abortions. I wish they were as against those elected to public office who lie, stretch the truth, spin, misrepresent bills, as they are against homosexuals and those seeking abortions.

[Jeff Rosenbury]

05:53 PM on 05/04/2011

Your wish is granted.

[Bob Kellerman]

09:19 PM on 05/04/2011

You drank too much wine when you ate that cookie in church

[Trismegistus22]

11:11 PM on 05/04/2011

It seems to me that "they" already do.

[VictoryBlue]

03:06 PM on 05/04/2011

hate=religion. Seems like they got called. boo hoo

Religion is slavery