Court Rejects Catholic Suit Against S.F.

A federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit Friday from Catholics who objected to San Francisco supervisors' condemnation of the Vatican for prohibiting Catholic Charities from placing children with gay and lesbian couples for adoption.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, in an 8-3 ruling, "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."

However, while siding with the city, the splintered ruling did not decide the underlying issue of whether San Francisco had expressed official hostility toward Catholicism in violation of the principle of separation of church and state, as the Catholics argued.

An attorney for the Catholic group promised a further appeal, the Chronicle reported.

Four years ago, in a nonbinding resolution, the city's supervisors denounced a decree by Cardinal William Levada, the former San Francisco archbishop who now leads the church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that said allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt children would amount to "doing violence" to the children. In response to the resolution, Catholic Charities of San Francisco stopped placing children for adoption with any family.