California Catholic Daily

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Published: April 24, 2007

“Get out of San Francisco!”

Appeals court asked: Did San Francisco Board of Supervisors violate First Amendment when it adopted resolution bashing the Catholic Church?

Was the San Francisco Board of Supervisors constitutionally justified in passing an explicitly anti-Catholic resolution, adopted March 21, 2006, which labeled the Vatican a “foreign country” whose moral teachings are “hateful,” “insulting and callous,” and “insulting to all San Franciscans”?

In December, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel said it was. Last week, the Thomas More Law Center filed a brief with the U. S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and two Catholic residents of San Francisco appealing Patel’s ruling.

The 2006 resolution, which called on the archbishop to “defy” the Church’s teachings and described Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as “unqualified” to lead, was a reaction to the Church’s opposition to adoptions by homosexual couples.

Judge Patel, appointed to the federal bench in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter and former counsel for the National Organization for Women, ruled that the Board of Supervisors’ resolution urging the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco to ignore his Church’s teachings, did not violate the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The Establishment Clause, found in the First Amendment, prohibits the government from interfering with the free practice of religion – or favoring one religion over another. The Thomas More Law Center says the Supervisors’ resolution sends a clear message that Catholics are not welcome as members of the San Francisco political community.

“Judge Patel clearly exhibited hostility toward the Catholic Church,” said Richard Thompson, chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center. In her ruling, the judge claimed that the Church “provoked” the Board of Supervisors by voicing its moral teaching, and that the Board reacted “responsibly” by adopting its resolution, which called Catholic beliefs “defamatory,” “absolutely unacceptable,” “insensitive,” and “ignorant.”

The week after the anti-Catholic resolution, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted, again unanimously, to condemn some 25,000 Evangelical teens who had gathered in the city to express their opposition to homosexual conduct. Openly gay San Francisco Assemblyman Mark Leno said the Christian teenagers were “obnoxious” and “disgusting” and “should not be tolerated.” He told the Christian group to “get out of San Francisco!”

“My concern is that, if the judge’s ruling is allowed to stand, it will further embolden the San Francisco Board in its anti-Christian attacks,” said Thompson.

“Our constitution plainly forbids government hostility toward any religion, including the Catholic faith,” said Thomas More Law Center attorney Robert Muise, who is handling the Ninth Circuit appeal. “In total disregard for the Constitution, homosexual activists have misused the instruments of government to attack the Catholic Church. Their egregious abuse of power now has the backing of a federal judge."

The Catholic Church teaches that allowing homosexuals to adopt children does violence to the children by placing them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. The Church finds such policies gravely immoral, and forbids Catholic organizations from placing children for adoption in homosexual households.

The 11-member San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative branch for both the city and county of San Francisco.

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