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.”
