US Supreme Court declines to hear Catholics' bias case against San Francisco city officials

The US Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in a lawsuit brought by Catholic activists against San Francisco officials who had condemned Catholic teaching as “hateful and discriminatory.”

The city supervisors passed a resolution in 2006 denouncing a statement by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which said that placing children for adoption by same-sex couples “would actually mean doing violence to these children.” Led by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, several Catholic plaintiffs joined in a suit, arguing that the resolution breached the separation of Church and state, and asking the courts to force its repeal. Lower federal courts rejected that suit, and the Supreme Court, by declining to take up the case, has let those decisions--and the supervisors' non-binding resolution--stand.