Bishops Say Rules on Gay Parents Limit Freedom of Religion
Laurie Goodstein ("The New York Times," December 28, 2011)
Roman Catholic bishops in Illinois have shuttered most of the Catholic
Charities affiliates in the state rather than comply with a new requirement
that says they must consider same-sex couples as potential foster-care and
adoptive parents if they want to receive state money. The charities have
served for more than 40 years as a major link in the state’s social service
network for poor and neglected children.
The bishops have followed colleagues in Washington, D.C., and Massachusetts
who had jettisoned their adoption services rather than comply with
nondiscrimination laws.
For the nation’s Catholic bishops, the Illinois requirement is a prime
example of what they see as an escalating campaign by the government to trample
on their religious freedom while expanding the rights of gay people. The
idea that religious Americans are the victims of government-backed
persecution is now a frequent theme not just for Catholic bishops, but also
for
Republican presidential candidates and conservative evangelicals.
“In the name of tolerance, we’re not being tolerated,” said Bishop Thomas
J. Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill., a civil and canon lawyer
who helped drive the church’s losing battle to retain its state contracts
for foster care and adoption services.
The Illinois experience indicates that the bishops face formidable
opponents who also claim to have justice and the Constitution on their side.
They
include not only gay rights advocates, but also many religious believers and
churches that support gay equality (some Catholic legislators among them).
They frame the issue as a matter of civil rights, saying that Catholic
Charities was using taxpayer money to discriminate against same-sex couples.
Tim Kee, a teacher in Marion, Ill., who was turned away by Catholic
Charities three years ago when he and his longtime partner, Rick Wade, tried
to
adopt a child, said: “We’re both Catholic, we love our church, but Catholic
Charities closed the door to us. To add insult to injury, my tax dollars
went to provide discrimination against me.”
The bishops are engaged in the religious liberty battle on several fronts.
They have asked the Obama administration to lift a new requirement that
Catholic and other religiously affiliated hospitals, universities and charity
groups cover contraception in their employees’ health plans. A decision has
been expected for weeks now.
At the same time, the bishops are protesting the recent denial of a federal
contract to provide care for victims of sex trafficking, saying the
decision was anti-Catholic. An official with the Department of Health and
Human
Services recently told a hearing on Capitol Hill that the bishops’ program
was rejected because it did not provide the survivors of sex trafficking,
some of whom are rape victims, with referrals for abortions or
contraceptives.
Critics of the church argue that no group has a constitutional right to a
government contract, especially if it refuses to provide required services.
But Anthony R. Picarello Jr., general counsel and associate general
secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, disagreed.
“It’s
true that the church doesn’t have a First Amendment right to have a
government contract,” he said, “but it does have a First Amendment right not
to be
excluded from a contract based on its religious beliefs.”
The controversy in Illinois began when the state legislature voted in
November 2010 to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples, which the state’s
Catholic bishops lobbied against. The legislation was titled “The Illinois
Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Unions Act,” and Bishop Paprocki said
he was given the impression that it would not affect state contracts for
Catholic Charities and other religious social services.
In New York State, religious groups lobbied for specific exemption language
in the same-sex marriage bill. But bishops in Illinois did not negotiate,
Bishop Paprocki said.
“It would have been seen as, ‘We’re going to compromise on the principle
as long as we get our exception.’ We didn’t want it to be seen as buying
our support,” he said.
Catholic Charities is one of the nation’s most extensive social service
networks, serving more than 10 million poor adults and children of many faiths
across the country. It is made up of local affiliates that answer to local
bishops and dioceses, but much of its revenue comes from the government.
Catholic Charities affiliates received a total of nearly $2.9 billion a year
from the government in 2010, about 62 percent of its annual revenue of
$4.67 billion. Only 3 percent came from churches in the diocese (the rest came
from in-kind contributions, investments, program fees and community
donations).
In Illinois, Catholic Charities in five of the six state dioceses had grown
dependent on foster care contracts, receiving 60 percent to 92 percent of
their revenues from the state, according to affidavits by the charities’
directors. (Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Chicago pulled out of
foster care services in 2007 because of problems with its insurance
provider.)
When the contracts came up for renewal in June, the state attorney general,
along with the legal staff in the governor’s office and the Department of
Children and Family Services, decided that the religious providers on state
contracts would no longer be able to reject same-sex couples, said Kendall
Marlowe, a spokesman for the department.
The Catholic providers offered to refer same-sex couples to other agencies
(as they had been doing for unmarried couples), but that was not acceptable
to the state, Mr. Marlowe said. “Separate but equal was not a sufficient
solution on other civil rights issues in the past either,” he said.
Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Rockford decided at that point to get
out of the foster care business. But the bishops in Springfield, Peoria,
Joliet and Belleville decided to fight, filing a lawsuit against the state.
Taking a completely different tack was the agency affiliated with the
conservative Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, which, like the Catholic Church,
does not sanction same-sex relationships. Gene Svebakken, president and chief
executive of the agency, Lutheran Child and Family Services of Illinois,
visited all seven pastoral conferences in his state and explained that the
best option was to compromise and continue caring for the children.
“We’ve been around 140 years, and if we didn’t follow the law we’d go out
of business,” Mr. Svebakken said. “We believe it’s God-pleasing to serve
these kids, and we know we do a good job.”
In August, Judge John Schmidt, a circuit judge in Sangamon County, ruled
against Catholic Charities, saying, “No citizen has a recognized legal right
to a contract with the government.” He did not address the religious
liberty claims, ruling only that the state did not violate the church’s
property
rights.
Three of the dioceses filed an appeal, but in November filed a motion to
dismiss their lawsuit. The Dioceses of Peoria and Belleville are spinning off
their state-financed social services, with the caseworkers, top executives
and foster children all moving to new nonprofits that will no longer be
affiliated with either diocese.
Gary Huelsmann, executive director of Catholic Social Services of Southern
Illinois, in the Belleville Diocese, said the decision was excruciating for
everyone.
“We have 600 children abused and neglected in an area where there are
hardly any providers,” he said. “Us going out of business would have been
detrimental to these children, and that’s a sin, too.”
The work will be carried on, but the Catholic Church’s seminal, historic
connection with it has been severed, noted Mr. Marlowe, the spokesman for the
state’s child welfare agency. “The child welfare system that Catholic
Charities helped build,” he said, “is now strong enough to survive their
departure.”
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