A splintered federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit Friday by Catholics who objected when San Francisco supervisors condemned the Vatican for prohibiting Catholic Charities from placing adoptive children with gay and lesbian couples.
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.
But the 8-3 ruling failed to decide whether the city had expressed official hostility toward Catholicism, in violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.
The supervisors' resolution denounced a decree by Cardinal William Levada, the former San Francisco archbishop who now heads the church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Levada said allowing gay or lesbian couples to adopt children "would actually mean doing violence to these children."
The nonbinding resolution, sponsored by then-Supervisor Tom Ammiano, said the Vatican order was "hateful and discriminatory ... insulting and callous."
The supervisors urged Levada's successor as archbishop, George Niederauer, and the local Catholic Charities to disregard the ban on same-sex adoptions.
In response, Catholic Charities of San Francisco stopped placing children for adoption with any families.
The lawsuit by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and individual Catholics accused the city of violating the constitutional requirement of government neutrality toward religion.
A federal judge and a three-judge appellate panel disagreed, saying the supervisors' target was discrimination, not the church.
But the full court then ordered a rehearing before an 11-judge panel, whose ruling Friday backed the city without resolving the underlying issue.
Only six judges addressed the question of whether San Francisco had attacked Catholicism, splitting 3-3.
Judge Andrew Kleinfeld, joined by Judges Sandra Ikuta and Jay Bybee, said the resolution was anti-Catholic, portrayed the church as a "hateful foreign meddler in San Francisco's affairs," and entangled the city in "church governance" by urging the local archbishop to defy the Vatican.
Judge Barry Silverman, along with Judges Sidney Thomas and Richard Clifton, countered that the resolution had a legitimate non-religious purpose, "to promote equal rights for same-sex couples," and the supervisors were entitled to criticize church officials who "have chosen to enter the secular fray."
The other five judges said there was no need to decide the issue. They said private citizens who are merely offended by a government resolution that requires no action on their part have no concrete interests at stake and thus no standing to sue.
Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria said city officials were pleased that the court did not restrict "the ability of San Francisco's policymakers to speak out on issues that they and their constituents care about."
The Catholic group's attorney, Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center, promised a further appeal.
He said the ruling left the law so murky that "the only one that can clarify this is the Supreme Court."
SIC: SFG/USA
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