Attempts to affix a label of inferiority to families of committed same-sex couples continue with Fulton v. Philadelphia, a pending U.S. Supreme Court effort to secure a right to discriminate for private, commercial child foster, placement and care businesses affiliated with religious institutions. In their effort to deny the LGBT community equal participation in society, these service providers seek to expand exemptions from the appropriate and Constitutionally grounded right to practice one’s religion freely into a full-blown right to discriminate throughout our greater society.

Though the dispute concerns religiously affiliated organizations who subscribe to anti-LGBT beliefs, if such a right to discriminate is authorized by the court, it will almost certainly be seized on by other businesses and commercial vendors who claim to have personal religious objections to serving same-sex couples. Fulton follows the much-discussed opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), that actually created more questions than it answered when it utilized a technical issue to rule—without actually ruling—in favor of a Colorado bakeshop that refused to bake a gay couple’s wedding cake.

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]