The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the local government resolution was correct to officially label the Catholic church's moral teachings on homosexuality as "insulting to all San Franciscans," "hateful," "defamatory," "insensitive" and "ignorant."
-- From "S.F.'s blast at Vatican was legal, court says" by Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer 6/4/09
San Francisco didn't cross into constitutionally forbidden territory of government hostility to religion when the Board of Supervisors denounced a Vatican order to Catholic Charities not to place adoptive children with same-sex couples, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The 2006 resolution condemned the Vatican's "hateful and discriminatory rhetoric" and urged local church officials to defy the order by Cardinal William Levada. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights sued, contending the city was expressing hostility toward Catholicism in violation of the Constitution.
. . . In response, Catholic Charities of San Francisco stopped placing children for adoption, the same step it has taken in Massachusetts and other areas with similar nondiscrimination policies, said Brian Rooney, a lawyer at the Thomas More Law Center, which sued San Francisco on behalf of the Catholic League.
Rooney said the league would appeal Wednesday's ruling.
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