A splintered federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit Friday by Catholics who objected when San Francisco supervisors condemned the Vatican for prohibiting Catholic Charities from placing adoptive children with gay and lesbian couples.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco
denied requests by a Catholic organization and two local residents to
order the city to repeal the supervisors' 2006 resolution.
But the 8-3 ruling failed to decide whether the city had expressed
official hostility toward Catholicism, in violation of the
constitutional separation of church and state.
The supervisors' resolution denounced a decree by Cardinal William
Levada, the former San Francisco archbishop who now heads the church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Levada said allowing gay or lesbian couples to adopt children "would actually mean doing violence to these children."
The nonbinding resolution, sponsored by then-Supervisor Tom Ammiano,
said the Vatican order was "hateful and discriminatory ... insulting and
callous."
The supervisors urged Levada's successor as archbishop,
George Niederauer, and the local Catholic Charities to disregard the ban
on same-sex adoptions.
In response, Catholic Charities of San Francisco stopped placing children for adoption with any families.
The lawsuit by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and individual Catholics accused the city of violating the constitutional requirement of government neutrality toward religion.
A federal judge and a three-judge appellate panel disagreed, saying
the supervisors' target was discrimination, not the church.
But the full
court then ordered a rehearing before an 11-judge panel, whose ruling
Friday backed the city without resolving the underlying issue.
Only six judges addressed the question of whether San Francisco had attacked Catholicism, splitting 3-3.
Judge Andrew Kleinfeld, joined by Judges Sandra Ikuta and Jay Bybee,
said the resolution was anti-Catholic, portrayed the church as a
"hateful foreign meddler in San Francisco's affairs," and entangled the
city in "church governance" by urging the local archbishop to defy the
Vatican.
Judge Barry Silverman, along with Judges Sidney Thomas and Richard
Clifton, countered that the resolution had a legitimate non-religious
purpose, "to promote equal rights for same-sex couples," and the
supervisors were entitled to criticize church officials who "have chosen
to enter the secular fray."
The other five judges said there was no need to decide the issue.
They said private citizens who are merely offended by a government
resolution that requires no action on their part have no concrete
interests at stake and thus no standing to sue.
Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria said city officials were pleased
that the court did not restrict "the ability of San Francisco's
policymakers to speak out on issues that they and their constituents
care about."
The Catholic group's attorney, Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law
Center, promised a further appeal.
He said the ruling left the law so
murky that "the only one that can clarify this is the Supreme Court."
SIC: SFG/USA