Fulton v. City of Philadelphia: Big Win For Religious Liberty

 Luke Goodrich reports:

#BREAKING: The Supreme Court just ruled UNANIMOUSLY that Philadelphia can’t shut down a Catholic foster-care ministry because of its religious beliefs about marriage. Some will try to say the ruling is “narrow.” Wrong. Five reasons this is HUGE:

 1. It is UNANIMOUS. This sends a powerful message that religious Americans are free to serve. They don’t have to change their basic beliefs about marriage and family in order to join hands across faith lines and serve the neediest in society.

 2. It shows that the infamous Smith decision--which narrowed the Free Exercise Clause--is not long for this world. There are at least 5 votes, likely 6, to overrule it. It’s only a matter of time before the Court restores even stronger protections for religious freedom.

 3. It adopts a rigorous test even under Smith. It says if a law lets the government make any case-by-case “exceptions,” even theoretically--which many laws do--the law is subject to strict scrutiny. This means gov't will have far less flexibility to restrict religious practices.

 4. It rejects the idea that constitutional protections go out the window when the government is entering “contracts” or managing “internal affairs.” This means the constitution applies rigorously across ALL government activities.

 5. It adopts a robust (correct) version of strict scrutiny—expressly rejecting the idea that the government can cite a general interest in “equality” or “dignity” to trump religious freedom.

 

And this from Roger Severino:

 

The most important line in Fulton: “The question [] is not whether the City has a compelling interest in enforcing its non-discrimination policies generally, but whether it has such an interest in denying an exception to CSS.” To which the court answered with one voice, no. 1/4

 This means generalized interests in sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination laws cannot automatically force individual religious orgs and people to act contrary to their beliefs. This is huge. 2/4

 The constitution requires space for people of good will to live according to their views of marriage, family, and human flourishing in their daily lives even today, when it has fallen out of favor with some woke governments. 3/4

 The court didn't condemn these religious beliefs with facile race analogies because implicitly they acknowledge there's something so different, real, and unchanging in the nature of embodied human sexuality that even the liberals on the court won't call such people bigots. 4/4

 

And this from the Court's opinion:

"As Philadelphia acknowledges, CSS has “long been a point of light in the City’s foster-care system.” Brief for City Respondents 1. CSS seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else. The refusal of Philadelphia to contract with CSS for the provision of foster care services unless it agrees to certify same-sex couples as foster parents cannot survive."