San Francisco's Hateful Anti-Catholic Resolution Prompts Lawsuit

From the Thomas More Law Center:

ANN ARBOR, MI – A virulently anti-Catholic resolution unanimously passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors condemning Catholic moral teaching on homosexuality and urging the Archbishop of San Francisco and Catholic Charities of San Francisco to defy Church directives prohibiting gay adoptions has prompted a federal lawsuit by the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and two San Francisco Catholic citizens, challenges the anti-Catholic resolution as a “startling attack by government officials on the Catholic Church, Catholic moral teaching and beliefs, and those who adhere to the tenets of the Catholic faith, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.”

The March 21, 2006 resolution alludes to the Vatican as a foreign country meddling in the affairs of the City and describes the Church’s moral teaching and beliefs as “insulting to all San Franciscans,” “hateful,” “insulting and callous,” “defamatory,” “absolutely unacceptable,” “insensitive[] and ignoran[t].” The resolution calls on the local Archbishop to “defy” the Church’s teachings and describes Cardinal William Joseph Levada, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is responsible for safeguarding the doctrine on the faith and morals of the Church throughout the Catholic world, as “unqualified” to lead.

According to Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, “The demagoguery and virulent words of this resolution are reminiscent of the anti- Catholic bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan and the Know Nothings, which marred our Nation’s earlier history. San Francisco may as well have put up signs at the City limits: ‘Faithful Catholics Not Welcomed.”

Catholic doctrine proclaims that allowing children to be adopted by homosexuals would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. Therefore, such policies are gravely immoral and Catholic organizations must not place children for adoption in homosexual households.

The lawsuit claims that the First Amendment “forbids an official purpose to disapprove of a particular religion, religious beliefs, or of religion in general.” The lawsuit states that this “anti-Catholic resolution sends a clear message to Plaintiffs and others who are faithful adherents to the Catholic faith that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community and an accompanying message that those who oppose Catholic religious beliefs, particularly with regard to homosexual unions and adoptions by homosexual partners, are insiders, favored members of the political community.”

Robert Muise, the Law Center attorney handling this matter, commented, “Our constitution forbids hostility toward any religion. In total disregard for the Constitution, homosexual activists in positions of authority in San Francisco are abusing their authority as government officials and misusing the instruments of government to attack the Catholic Church. This egregious abuse of power is an outrage and a clear violation of the First Amendment.”