The Daily Signal - Religious Liberty on Trial in Supreme Court's Foster Care Case

Episode Date: November 13, 2020

Foster parents offer hope and critical support to children facing tremendous challenges. But the city of Philadelphia has threatened that hope by telling longtime foster parents that they can't work with Catholic Social Services because of the religious organization's belief in marriage as the union of one man and one woman.  The case Fulton v. City of Philadelphia went before the Supreme Court last week. Heritage Foundation scholar Ryan T. Anderson recently hosted a panel discussion breaking down the case and why it is a critical battle for thousands of foster children and religious liberty in America. Today, we share that discussion with you on “The Daily Signal Podcast.” We also cover these stories: Amid a GOP push to investigate voter fraud claims, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., attacks Republican leaders for “poisoning the well of our democracy.” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., says he will get involved if the Trump administration doesn't allow Joe Biden to begin receiving intelligence briefings that address situations such as national security threats. The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules that Harvard University may continue to use race as a consideration in its admissions process.  Enjoy the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, November 13th. I'm Rachel Dahl Judas. And I'm Virginia Allen. Foster parents offer hope and critical support to children facing tremendous challenges. But the city of Philadelphia has threatened that hope by telling longtime foster parents that they cannot work with Catholic social services because of the religious group's belief in traditional marriage. A lawsuit was filed and the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for the case last week. The Heritage Foundation's Ryan Anderson hosted a panel discussion, breaking down the case and why it's a critical battle for religious liberty.

Today, we share that discussion with you. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news. On Thursday, a judge in Pennsylvania ruled in favor of President Donald Trump's campaign, saying that Pennsylvania cannot count ballots in instances where voters need. needed to provide proof of identification and failed to do so by November 9th, per Fox News. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported that Commonwealth Court President, Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt, ruled that Pennsylvania Secretary of State, Kathy Bukvar, lacked authority when she issued guidance to county boards of election to count mail ballots so long as voters' IDs were confirmed

by November 12th. In the court order, Leavitt said per Fox, the court concludes that respondent Kathy Bukfar in her official capacity as Secretary of the Commonwealth, lacks statutory authority to issue the November 1st 2020 guidance to Respondents County Board of Elections insofar that guidance purported to change the deadline for certain electors to verify proof of identification. Amid a push to investigate claims of voter fraud, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer attacked Republican leaders during a press conference for, quote, poisoning the wells of our democracy. Take a listen to what Schumer had to say Thursday per now this news. Instead of working to pull the country back together so that we can fight our common enemy COVID-19,

Republicans in Congress are spreading conspiracy theories, denying reality, and poisoning the well of our democracy. The Republicans should stop their shenanigans about an election that President Trump has already lost and focused their attention on the immediate issue at hand, providing release. to a country living through the COVID health and economic crises. When it comes to the election, Republicans, congressional Republicans don't have the evidence. They don't have the proof. They don't have anything. Neither does the president. Congressional Republicans are deliberately casting doubt on our elections for no other reason but fear of Donald Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier this week that the president is

100% within his rights to look into allegations of irregularities and weigh his legal options. And he added, let's not have any lectures about how the president should immediately, cheerfully, accept preliminary election results from the same characters who just spent four years refusing to accept the validity of the last election. Republican Senator James Linkford of Oklahoma said Wednesday that he would get involved if former vice president Joe Biden fails to begin receiving intel briefings that address situations such as national security threats. Lankford, who is part of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee,

said on a Tulsa radio station, KRMG, that this needs to occur so that regardless of the outcome of the election, whichever way that it goes, people can be ready for the actual task. If that's not occurring by Friday, I will step in. On Thursday, Boston's first U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Harvard can continue to use race as a consideration factor in its admissions process. Students for Fair admissions sued Harvard on the grounds that their affirmative action admissions policies are a direct violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But U.S. Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch disagreed with the argument put forth saying Harvard's race-conscious admissions program ensures that Harvard can retain

the benefits of diversity it has already achieved. The circuit court, Court ruling was 2 to 0 given that the third judge on the appeals court passed away last month. The case is expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now stay tuned for the Heritage Foundation panel discussion with Ryan Anderson, breaking down the latest fight to defend religious liberty at the Supreme Court. I'm Amy Swearer. And I'm John Carlo Canaparo. And if you want to understand what's happening at the Supreme Court,

Be sure to check out SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast. We take a look at the cases, the personalities, and the gossip at the highest court in the land. It's SCOTUS 101. Welcome to Heritage Events Live, Free to Foster, the Supreme Court's latest religious liberty case. We're thrilled to have you here. I now invite Dr. Ryan Anderson, Heritage's William E. Simon, Senior Research Fellow, and American Principles and Public Policy to come on screen. We hope you enjoy the program.

Great, thank you, Catherine, and thank you everyone for joining us. It's a pleasure to be with you today for this Heritage Events, live event. My name is Ryan Anderson. I'm a senior research fellow here at the Heritage Foundation, and it's just wonderful that we've been able to assemble on such short notice, three leading experts on the Supreme Court case that was heard earlier this week at the US Supreme Court, on foster agencies and on adoption. If you aren't familiar, the day after the election, so everyone

else was, you know, tracking the results, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that comes out of Philadelphia. There are two Catholic foster mothers and the Catholic foster agency that was serving them, assuming the city of Philadelphia, because the city disagrees with Catholic beliefs about marriage and refuses to allow Catholic social services to engage in foster care any longer. The Supreme Court decision will have significant impact, not just on these families and this agency and the children in need in Philadelphia. but it could have an impact on foster and adoption agencies throughout the United States and possibly other faith-based charities and ministries. But don't take it from me. Like I said, we've assembled this all-star panel of legal experts, foster care and adoption experts.

And so I want to invite the panelists to join me on screen by turning on their webcams. And let me tell you a little bit about them and I'll introduce them in the order in which they will speak. First up is Lori Windham. Laurie is Senior Counsel at the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, and she argued the Philadelphia case just three days ago at the Supreme Court. She's been at Beckett for 15 years, has represented a variety of clients in religious freedom matters at more or less every level of the judicial system. Together with the team at Beckett, she's been part of major victories for religious liberty

for clients that you might have heard of like Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the poor and EWTN. Laurie is a graduate of Harvard Law School and of the Avalene Christian University. Next, we'll have Melissa Buck. Melissa is the mother to five beautiful children who she adopted through the foster care system. And having been a foster parent for 10 years, Melissa now spends her time mentoring other foster parents and advocating for foster parents, for children, and for the agencies that serve the parents and the children. She's now part of litigation in her home state of Michigan to pursue her state of Michigan to pursue her

protect faith-based agencies and the families and the children they serve. Melissa and her husband are the 2019 recipients of the Angels in Adoption Award. And then last but not least, we'll be joined by Malka Groton. She's the deputy director of development at the Manhattan Institute, and she and her husband are members of the Habad Jewish community in Brooklyn, and they're the parents of two young children who they adopted. Malca is a domestic adoption advocate in the Orthodox Jewish world. So with that, let me kick things off by welcoming Lori to share a little bit about what it was like arguing at the Supreme Court, what the case is all about, and what do we need to know about this. Well, Ryan, thank you so much and thank everybody for joining us today on a day

when I know that there's a whole lot else going on in the world. But we're really grateful to have you here. This is an incredibly important case, as Ryan said, about the future of foster care and also of adoption and what role religious agencies are going to be able to play. So this case started out in 2018. We had a couple of amazing foster moms, Sharon L. Fulton and Tony Sims Bush, along with the third, Cecilia Paul, who sadly passed away while this case was going through the court system. Actually, you can see a story from one of her adopted sons in the Wall Street Journal today telling her story. It's really powerful. But the city of Philadelphia, in response to a newspaper article, found out that Catholic Social Services of Philadelphia, which had been serving families and supporting foster and adoptive families for 200 years, had Catholic beliefs about marriage and said if an unmarried or a same-sex couple were to approach them and ask them to certify their relationship and their home for fostering, they wouldn't be able to do that. But they would help them to find another agency who could.

could. There are 30 foster agencies in Philadelphia, and there are 29 others who would happily help them through their foster care journey. Catholic Social Services couldn't in good faith do that, and no same-sex couple had even approached them asking them to do that. But because of an inquiry in the press, the city officials got wind of it, and they shut off all foster care placements to Catholic social services. And so this means that at a time when Philadelphia, was putting out a call for 300 more foster parents to join their system. They said they would no longer put any more children in the homes of Cecilia Paul, who had won an award as foster parent of the year and had fostered over 100 children in her time.

They left empty beds in her home. They would not place any more foster children with Chernell Fulton, who's been doing this for 25 years and fostered over 40 kids and adopted a number of them. They wouldn't place any more foster children with moms like Tony Sims Bush, who is a social worker who has fostered for and adopted two amazing boys. They wouldn't place any more children in her home. And Catholic Social Services and these moms said this isn't right. We want to be able to continue serving our community. And so we at Beckett partnered with them to represent them and bring this case in the Philadelphia courts.

and the court refused to reopen Catholic Social Services foster agency and refused to rule what the city had done was wrong. And so we took this case up on appeal to the appeals court. The court of appeals disagreed and said, no, the city was within its rights to cut off this foster care agency over the city's rules. And so we took this to the Supreme Court and asked them to take this. the case and to our great relief, the court did decide to take up the case. And so we found out in February, just before all of this with COVID started, that the Supreme Court was going to hear the case. And they took it up and we heard it the day after election day via teleconference, because

that's how the court is doing things now. Like most of us, they're working remotely. And so argue the case through via teleconference, I'm really optimistic. coming out of the argument. The court and the justices were obviously well aware of the real human cost here and the importance of what's going on in realizing that Philadelphia didn't need to do this. There are a lot of other options out there and also recognizing that there are children in need of homes. And I want to speak just briefly to what this case means because we hear about foster care, we hear about adoption. These are incredibly important issues, but they're not

the only issues. And so, of course, this case starts with foster care. This is when children have to be removed from their birth parents due to abuse or neglect. They need a place to go. And Catholic Social Services is out there finding homes of foster parents and then partnering with those parents and supporting them so that they can continue to walk this very difficult journey of providing homes for these kids and loving them and caring for them during a difficult time. and then if it becomes necessary, adopting them and welcoming them into their families permanently. This case also has implications, you know, obviously for adoption, because we're talking about fostering children and perhaps later on adopting them permanently.

It also has implications for private adoption. When you have a birth mother who chooses to place her child for adoption and is looking for the right home, can religious agencies continue to fulfill that? role. It's an important question and it is one that is at risk. I just want to end briefly by talking about the national impact of this case. Of course, anytime you've got a case before the Supreme Court, you have to think about the national impact because what they say is going to apply nationwide. But Philadelphia is not the only story like this. Michigan has attempted to shut down religious foster care agencies there. Melissa Buck, who you'll hear from, is an amazing

foster and adoptive mom who has partnered with her agency, St. Vincent's Catholic Charities. They've been able to win a court order to keep St. Vincent's foster ministry open and let them continue to serve kids despite a challenge and an attempt from the state of Michigan to shut that down. We have seen similar cases in New York and in South Carolina, as well as in Texas. And sadly, we have seen a number of cases nationwide. of foster and adoption agencies simply closing their doors. They're challenged by their city or state government. They don't know what else to do,

and so they've had to close their doors before this can even get to the court system. And so this is a nationwide trend and a nationwide danger and something we need to be very concerned about. And with that, I know there's a lot more to say about a complex case, but it's not as exciting to hear from lawyers.

It's a whole lot more exciting to hear from amazing adoptive parents like Melissa and Malca. Great. Thank you, Lori. I can listen to lawyers all day long. I find it fascinating, but maybe our viewers would like to hear from some of the mothers involved here. So let me turn it over to Melissa. Melissa, let me invite you on. Tell us about your story. Tell us about what's going on with your case in Michigan. What do people need to know about being a foster mom? Hi. Good morning. Thank you so much for having me here. Yeah, you know, as as Lori was saying, you know, this case about foster care and religious liberty isn't just happening in Pennsylvania. It is also happening in Michigan. We are involved in litigation right now to keep our faith-based foster care agencies opened. My husband and I have adopted five kids from St. Vincent Catholic Charities. Their sibling groups in there. And for us, you know, this is a really important.

important case. This is an agency that we have that we have worked with for 10 years now. We're continuing to work with through mentorship and obviously follow up care for our kids. You know, foster care is not an easy job. There's a lot of turnover. A lot of foster parents, you know, turn in their licenses because it's hard on you to see what these kids have gone through, to work through the whole system and the whole process. For us, though, and for a bunch of parents that I am close with through St. Vincent, we keep. going because of the support that we have received from them. And to make it even more personal, I know we talked to, you know, I wasn't fostering anymore, but actually our family is in the

process of reopening our license because our son, our youngest son, has an older sister who is available to be adopted. And the desire to keep siblings together is really strong for us. And we are, we're thankful that we have this opportunity to work with our agency again, not just because we love them, but because who better to help us through this process and to help our future daughter through this process and the agency who already knows her story, who already knows our story, who already knows how important it is to keep them together. And so it makes it even more personal for us now as we get back into fostering and into adapting another child that we that we can have our agency there to provide support. And not just some, support for us, but support for her. She's going to feel the most comfortable working with these people, too. And so we're kind of just sitting back here wondering, you know, if we could please stop having these ridiculous, in my opinion, fights about this. It's not going to benefit our children in any way to close down our agency. It's not going to benefit the child welfare system. And I think that the Supreme Court even made it pretty clear that it was a, I mean, it's kind of a joke in a way that these cases are being. brought up in the first place. So yeah, you know, I just, I'm very thankful for people like Lori, for Beckett, for you guys, for spreading this message out there. It's not an easy job. It takes a lot of people and a lot of support. And these faith-based agencies really go about it

with that intention of supporting people. It's not just a work for them. It's part of their faith. It's a mission for them. And they pour their whole lives into it in such a way. And we can't, We can't allow these children who they serve to lose that kind of support. Great. Thank you. And Maka, I'll invite you to say a few words as well. Thank you. It's really an honor to be here with fighters like Lori and Melissa. I'm very, I'm humbled to be on a panel with them. So my story is a little different. I'm an adoptive mom from an Hasidic Jew. And my husband and I really came to adoption through the, in many ways, that classic narrative of we, faced infertility and we decided to expand our family through adoption. And we really went

into this as we want to have children. But very quickly, once we entered the world of adoption, we entered a world which we'd never known before. For the first time, you know, I was, I'm lucky to have been raised in a wonderful middle class family with two parents. And for the first time I'm confronted with situations where, you know, drug abuse is common, incarceration is common, prostitution, rape. These are just, I mean, I kept saying to my husband at the time, no one lives with the right people. It was just so jarring for me.

And so very quickly, we realized this wasn't about us. This wasn't about the adults. This was about their vulnerable children and how can we best place them and give them stable and secure and loving homes. And, you know, there's something crazy about doing this in today's culture. Because today's culture really tells us that there's kind of this aspirational perfection in parenting.

A child should eat organic foods. They should not watch X amount of TV. They all kind of preparing them for their end goal of an Ivy League University education. And you know, there's something adopted that foster and adopted parents. We're able to look at that narrative and we're able to say, that really doesn't matter at all. We want to provide stable and secure homes for children who need them so that they have a bedtime, so that they go to the zoo, so that they learn that, so that they have secure attachments to set them up for success, whatever that looks like.

And there's something crazy about that in this world because it so goes against the grain of what wider culture tells us. And what's important about faith affirming agencies, which for me, I did not use a faith affirming agency, but why I still draw strength from them as a Jew is because they encourage you to kind of continue in this crazy path because they tell you that, you know, no child, every child deserves a home no matter how broke and their beginning is or their early years are or what they've been through. And so losing, so this case, this isn't just about Catholic social services in Philadelphia.

This is a broader case. This is a broader issue that would affect the whole of us who are involved in this work of caring for vulnerable children. We need faith-based agencies and we need voices of faith that can encourage us and keep us on this path, which the wider culture just does. doesn't really understand.

So that's why I'm proud to be here. Great. Thank you. And we're happy to have you with us. Larry, I want to ask you a question. Malcolm had just said that this isn't just about Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia. What are the larger implications of this case? Depending on how the court rules, how narrow or how broad

could the ruling be? What would the implications be for other foster agencies for adoption agencies, possibly even for other religious charities. How are you guys thinking about what we might see and its implications? Yeah, and thank you for asking that, Ryan. You know, the court could go a couple different ways. If you give a really broad ruling with a broad vision of the Free Exercise Clause, and I hope they will.

It could give a little bit narrower ruling. They would help to clarify the law and show when cities like Philadelphia have gone way too far in restricting religious exercise, Either one of those options would be really valuable. What I fear, and I don't think this will happen, I think that we will see a victory here, but what could happen if the court decided to go the other direction and agree with the city of Philadelphia,

what the city in the ACLU who is supporting them had said is that when the government steps out and partners with social service groups to provide social services, partners with religious groups to provide social services, the government gets to set the rules. And if that violate your faith, if they force you to do something, that violate your faith, then they can just kick you out of serving. And the justices were actually asking at the argument, well, what would this mean for religious

hospitals? Could you coerce them to participate in assisted suicide or in abortion or in other things that violate their faith? And the other side didn't have a good answer for that. And so I think this is really important when we think not just about this incredibly important area of foster care and adoption and private adoption, but also when we think about the other ways that religious groups are out there serving those in need. Hospitals, schools, homeless shelters, food distribution, all these wonderful things they do. If they're doing that in partnership with the government in any way, then there's a real risk that the government can do. what Philadelphia did and come in and try and shut that down. And can I ask you a follow-up question there?

Because sometimes you hear people say something like, well, if you take government money, you have to leave your faith behind. If you're taking government money, you can't then exercise your faith. And then the question is like, all right, run a hospital without receiving Medicaid or Medicare funding for your patients. Or can you even run a foster care agency without interacting with the government? Could you explain kind of just the logistics of how a foster agency works and why there necessarily is going to be a connection with the state given who has jurisdiction of the children.

Right. Exactly, Ryan. In the foster care space and to a somewhat different degree in the adoption space, there's going to be some government involvement there because this is a situation where the city or the state varies a little bit by what state you're in. But the government has custody of those children and is trying to find them a home. And so you're in a situation where you have to partner with the government because the government is the one who says, okay, yes, you're an approved agency. We will let you place children. And that can happen with foster care where the government is saying, hey, we have these kids. We need to have you help us find them homes. And that can happen even in private adoption where the state is licensing which agencies are able to serve as adoption agencies. And so to say, well, don't partner with the government. It simply doesn't work that. way. This is work that was historically done by private groups, by religious groups. Now the government has come in and said, we're going to be involved in every one of these cases. If you don't partner with us, you're out. And that's a real risk. I also think it's important, you know, just as you alluded to with hospitals, how damaging it would be to tell a woman who is on Medicaid and is looking for help and is looking, you know, for a place to treat her children and her family. I'm sorry, you can't go to the religious hospital. We don't care that it's the nearest one to you. We don't care that it's your best option. We're going to shut them out and not do that. It's a really harmful thing for the people who are seeking services and needing help. That's a great point of reminding people that religious freedom protects not just the freedom of the religious charity, but of people who want to utilize that religious charity, utilize the religious hospital, utilize the religious agency. And so Melissa, as someone

who has five times, now in your sixth time, utilized a religious agency. I want to ask you a question about one of the arguments that one of the justices made. I think it was Justice Breyer, I remember correctly. He said, well, why can't Catholic social services just certify same-sex couples and then just announce a disclaimer that they're not, quote, evaluating their relationship? Could you explain? I think a lot of people just don't know the practicalities of how foster care works, how foster agencies function in the certification program. Could you explain why that's impossible, the solution that he was, you know, maybe hypothetically proposing? Yeah, sure, absolutely. So when you are signing up to be a foster parent, you are given a lot of paperwork to start. And you fill out everything. And,

I mean, you are, you're talking about your health. You're talking about your finances, your relationship, your relationship with your siblings, your relationship with your family, the kinds of kids that you would be able to take in your home, you know, we for a long time could not have any children who required like a first floor bedroom because all of our bedrooms were upstairs, you know, all these things. And then once you fill out, you know, a thousand sheets of paper, they come over to your house and they, you know, they sit you down and they evaluate your relationship. They evaluate you and your spouse together. They evaluate you separately. And if you already have children in your home,

they'll talk to your children about things as well. So the certification that they're writing up isn't just like, yep, this couple's married, they have kids, they have a house, it's good. No, it's way more than that. It includes an assessment of our relationship, if our marriage, if it's strong, if it's healthy, if it's, you know, they can't just say,

this couple is married and check a box and then sign it and send it in. So to ask an agent, agency to say to assess someone's marriage and then say you know disclaimer but I don't agree with it they're still having to go against their beliefs in order to do the assessment in the first place so for people to think that you really can just kind of skip over it they don't it's obvious at that point that they're not really sure just how invasive the and thorough the licensing process is I mean as it

should be obviously you want to make sure you're getting the most appropriate people to do the job but yeah you can't really, you can't just gloss over any of it. Great, thank you. I want to ask you another question, but I also wanna invite our viewers that if you have questions for the three panelists, on the right-hand side of your screen,

you have the little drop box, and one of those tabs says questions. Feel free to type in a question, it'll come to me, I'll read through questions, I'll ask questions of the panelists. So if you're watching this and you wanna ask something about the foster system, about adoption, about the legal arguments,

feel free to just type those right in and I'll make sure they get to our panelists. But Melissa, the follow-up question that I had was people say, well, look, why can't you just go to a different agency? You know, if the agency that you want to use is, quote, discriminating, if it's violating the law, what's the big deal? Why not just start over with a different agency? You know, people switch companies all the time on other issues. why can't you just switch the company you're using when it comes to fostering? Can you help people understand what's kind of at stake there? Right.

Well, first of all, you can't just run to somebody else and say, hey, I have a license. I'm just going to hang out here because you have to do a license transfer, which is essentially getting relicensed, which takes months. It takes a long time. And so it's not like I can just shop around, give two weeks notice to my agency and hop over someplace else. But also, that's my agent. agency. One of the greatest benefits that I have of going through a private agency or one of the greatest things that I I love is that they are not they're not the county level agency. So they get to kind of put a little more control over how many cases each case worker has. And at the county level, they are so overburdened with cases that you can, it's very difficult to get a hold of your caseworker of a supervisor of anybody. And sometimes you absolutely.

have to get in touch with someone because of behavior with the kids because of something that happened. You know, if you have an emergency. And one of the things that I have always loved about St. Minson is that I can get in contact with a caseworker. There is always somebody available for me, for my family. They are incredibly supportive of us. I mean, even to the point where like our licensing worker used to call my husband and I and say, when was the last time the two of you went on on date? Do you need me to find some respite care so the two of you can get out? And I mean, that's just unheard of. I mean, who gets ordered to go on a date with your husband and to ditch the kids for a night? Like, who arranges for a babysitter so you can do that? You know, it's a, it's one of those things.

I mean, I know these people. They went through life with me. They've been through the struggles we've felt with their kids. When, you know, when kids have gone home and been returned to parents, which is always the joy and always the goal, you know, there's grief on our end and they helped us through it. I just, I can't imagine going any place else and being able to have that same bond as I have with the people that I have worked with for this long. You know, you need that support system. Your friends and family, they don't really get it. They don't know all the terms. They don't understand it. You can't share everything.

But these people at this agency, they know every little detail of this case. And they are, they're your safe space to be. So it's not, it's not as easy as it sounds to just flip side. Thank you. Because I think a lot of people just don't know all of the realities that you just shared there. And Malka, I want to turn to you because, you know, it was great during oral arguments. Justice, Amy Coney Barrett was on the bench.

And that question that Laurie mentioned earlier about, you know, could the state just kind of co-opped the health care system and then force religious hospitals to do things that violate their beliefs, you know, whether it be assisted to suicide or abortion. came from Justice Barrett. One of the disturbing things that we saw during the confirmation hearing, not so much the hearing itself, but the media circus surrounding, the hearing was the way in which Justice Barrett's two adopted children were kind of dragged through the mud and the idea that because they were of different races, that there was something problematic here. And I know you've shared with me that both of your adopted children are black and that you had some

and thoughts about that and some interesting experiences. I wonder if you could share your own story there and how you think religious voices, religious agencies, really play a special role here. Sure. So yes, the weeks preceding the confirmation of Justice Barrett were, they were difficult, but they were not surprising.

I mean, those of us who are in this space kind of knew that this was headed this way. And that's really because the mainstream culture at this point has really, you know, latched on to race as that one thing that can really divide us. And it used to be, we used to be able to say love builds a family and everyone agreed to that, but that's not no longer the case. And I'll just share from our own experience, you know, come from a Hasidic community. I wasn't sure was I going to be comfortable having two black, having black children when my husband and are white and in a community that is primarily white. But once I realized, once I got involved in adoption and I realized that this is, this is

the reality of adoption, that this is, your family is not going to look like, my child is not going to look like me in any case. And as soon as I kind of opened myself up there, I was required to actually go through a lot of training, which taught me that I should, they want me to adopt transracially. They would like me to adopt black children because there are many black children who are waiting, but I should also be aware that I'm perpetuating a cycle where I'm the white savior, where my black children will never really be a part of my family. I will never really be able to understand them and give them what they need. So I have to very much struggle,

and really great credit to my husband who wouldn't accept any of that. But I really have to fight those voices because they're very compelling. And I have to. I don't, I I didn't want to be a moral pariah. And when the whole culture is telling you that black children really belong with black parents, that's the understood thing, then you have to fight that. And so the benefit of religious voices here is that religious voices are the ones that come to remind you that, no, every child, every human is created in the image of God. And that's what matters most.

And you're there to provide a home for them? That's what matters. I've really gained a lot of strength from Catholic and Christian voices on this topic. So losing that would be not only a loss for all the parents that kind of need to be buoyed in this, in this righteous path, really, but also for the children who, for the first time there's going to be, not for the first time, but people are going to start thinking, is it the right thing for me to take in this black child? We're a white couple.

I shouldn't take this child in, which is ludicrous. But unfortunately, we're in a place right now where religious voices are the only ones who are providing that sage advice. Great, thank you. And so I have a follow-up question that came from one of our viewers, Hannah, and it's about those religious voices. She asks, are there Hasidic Jewish adoption agencies? And if so, why did you choose to go a different route? So I guess, one, if you're comfortable sharing that part of your story, but the, the The kind of broader question is, are there some Jewish agencies out there?

Is there a Hesdik, a Jewish agency in particular? What are the kind of options there for Jewish viewers who are thinking about fostering or adopting? Sure. So there is, in New York, there's O'Hell Child and Family Services, which really mostly manages the placement of Jewish children. Now, we just have to think about this a little bit historically, is that Jewish families, Orthodox Jewish families tend to be large, have many children, and there's an ethos of taking care of our own, taking care of Jewish children first. We can talk about where that comes from and why that is, but that's not for today. And so historically, there haven't been many Jewish voices kind of in this

fight on fought for to foster and adopt all children. So as I mentioned, so we, we, went through a secular agency for that reason. But through this process, I was introduced to Catholic and Christians that are involved in this work. And through those relationships, I started thinking, you know what? Really important in order to get this message out in the Jewish community is to be able to make the case for this as a Jew. You know, to be able to say, you know, thinker Rabbi Salavich talks about a covenantal parenthood. What is the idea of covenantal parenthood? It's, it's, and it's that it's higher than the idea of biological parenthood in many ways,

a pure biological parenting. Using the thought of the Lobavich Rebbe, who talked about revealing the divine spark in each person. So I was only, I only start to think about talking that way and really making the case for adoption and for foster care and adoption as a Jewish mission, through my relationships with Catholics and Christians, because I realize how powerful it is to make the case that way,

because it speaks to people's core of who they are. So while I don't think that in the next few years we're going to be seeing a Jewish organization that's doing foster care and adoption broadly, I do think that we might see more families that are emboldened to come on this path, on this path. And I mean, that's, I think, a positive small step in that direction. Great. Thank you. We have two questions from you. One from Elias. What are the constitutional

implications of religious agencies providing public services? And then the other one is from Sandy. Do you think the court will just kick the can down the road at this point because of RFRA? And then the second part of her question, but with the Equality Act looming in Congress, with Pelosi and Biden, both saying that this would be a priority of theirs, you know, how do we think about this at the federal level with pending legislation? Sure. So I'm happy, and I'll make sure I try and remember and catch all of that. So talking about social services, you know, I think it's really important when we're thinking about this. And I emphasize this at the argument, too, that we go back to the founding, we go back to where we started. This is work that we're. was done by the religious community, people of different faiths, reaching out and serving those in need. And what we've seen is the government encroaching more and more. And it can do that through just straight up regulation and it does a lot of that. It can do that through funding saying we're going to make this available. And that might be funding to the agency. There might be funding to

the recipients like we talked about with Medicaid and saying, okay, here's where you can go. And it could do that with, you know, partnering with them to do work like we see in the foster care and adoption space. And so I think it's important when we think about the expansion of government power over the last 50 years, 100 years, to keep in mind that they're expanding into something that's historically been private. They are expanding, in many cases, into something that's historically been religious. And so what we don't want to have is a rule of law that says every time government gets bigger,

religious exercise gets smaller and the space that belongs to you and the space for you're free to act suddenly shrinks. That would be a dangerous precedent to set. And, you know, so far in cases that involve funding or granting the court hasn't gone that direction. The court's been inclined to just look and say, no, you have constitutional rights. They haven't gone away. And so I'm really hopeful they'll do the same here. It's also good questions about RFRA and the Equality Act. You know, RIFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act gives greater protection for religious exercise. We have it in the federal level for federal laws. Many states have it. Pennsylvania actually has one, but the court said that it didn't apply here. I think they were, I think they got that

analysis wrong, but that's where they left it. And so RIFRA provides really important protections for people of faith and for faith-affirming agencies and faith-based organizations. But that's not what the court is deciding in this case, because it wasn't a federal law. It was a state one. It's actually a city one. So it doesn't come into play. And, you know, with the Equality Act, those are questions that have been raised about what would the impacts of that be, what would the protections be for religious groups and organizations? And so I think that it shows the importance of having strong protections for religious freedom. Because I think having strong constitutional protections for religious freedom can actually help to turn the volume

down and can help to support a society where people of diverse beliefs can thrive and can work together. And not every case needs to be a constitutional case that arrives at the Supreme Court. Governments instead can do what Philadelphia should have done here, which was to look at this at the outset and you know what, say, you know what, we've got a system that works. We're going to let Catholic social services continue to serve. Great. Thank you. We just got a question from David. And I think this is Lori both for you and Melissa, I want to invite you to say a little bit about this. David's question is, to what extent will this case, the Philly case, the outcome of it, have impacts for other cases? And he mentions, for example, the Michigan case.

And so Melissa, I know that the Attorney General has said some things about you in that case. And so I want to broaden the question to say, how do we think going forward about the conflict between religious liberty and LGBT interests? I know Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Kavanaugh, said some things about this during oral arguments. How should we think about navigating that terrain? And then what do you think will be the implications for Michigan? Melissa, what is the AG said about you? How do you respond to that? And I guess I don't know who wants to go first, Lori or Melissa.

Let me give the short answer, and then I'll let Melissa do the talking. The short answer is the Michigan case is a good victory, but it's been put on hold. to wait and see what's going to happen in Fulton. And I think that just shows you how courts around the country are looking to the Supreme Court for guidance to see what's going to happen here. Yes, I agree with that completely. We're basically waiting to see how Fulton plays out because that will kind of determine, you know, how everything goes in our state.

They're going to, I think, follow suit with that. But yes, for us, you know, we really enjoy reading all the things that people have to say about us. Our attorney general, you know, called people like me. hate mongerers who hate gay people more than they love children, which, you know, should go on my tombstone, I guess, because, you know, because it's just preposterous and really, really hurtful. You know, if we're going, if we're talking about this and we're saying that I hate people more than I love my children, I mean, it couldn't be broken from the truth. I've never, ever once. And you can look through anything that's ever been, you know, any media I've ever been in or anything.

I've never once said that I thought that same-sex couples shouldn't be allowed to be licensed, that they shouldn't be allowed to adopt, that they would make bad parents. That's not my belief. That's not my belief at all. And, you know, I think we're not really going to get anywhere if we are still going to have that kind of an attitude where people are going to just say really hurtful things about one another. I think if we could kind of take the time to really sit down. talk and see where our hearts are.

You know, I believe that my agency should be allowed to practice their faith. I don't think that it's that it's a lessening the pool of foster or adoptive parents in our state. I think that forcing them to close their doors will lessen the pool of foster and adoptive families in my state. And I think to close them in the name of helping children, I don't see how that adds up. I think about all the kids that will be displaced, all the foster homes that will be lost, the homes that are not willing to be re-licensed and move their license, the kids are going to be left waiting in that system longer and longer while everybody gets re-licensed or things get sorted out. I don't see that as a victory for them,

considering it's child welfare and it's about them. But yeah, I wish that we could all look at this from the perspective of what's truly best for these children. And I think going forward with all of us, that that should be the common goal. What is truly best for them, what will provide them with the most amount of people who are available to love and support and adopt them

and give them families. And, you know, where will it be where they feel the most loved and served and cared for? And name calling doesn't help that. Great. Thank you. We only have time for one last question. And so Lori, I want to throw it to you. I forget now the exact wording of the very closing statement that you made to the court. But it was about how do we find peaceful coexistence, pluralism, diversity. And just to remind viewers, there are 30 agencies in Philadelphia, 29 of which work with same-sex couples.

And so the question to my mind is, why do, if we believe in pluralism and diversity and peaceful coexistence, why do we have to coerce the 30th agency to violate its belief? And so I want to ask you, what would a victory mean for your clients, for the two mothers, for the agency? How would fostering that peaceful coexistence, that pluralism, that diversity, what would it mean in their lives? Because, you know, we can talk about legal holdings here, but it's actually that there are people at the heart of this case. And this will mean something to them one way or the other. Absolutely. And, you know, if we win here, what that means is that these families can welcome children into their homes again. And, you know, I've been talking to Sharon L and she's talked about how she feels like her house is so quiet without any foster kids there running around.

And talking to Tony and how much she loves her boys. And I was so excited to be with them in thinking about the future. And, you know, if they have a sibling who comes into the system, you know, just like Melissa has talked about being able to take in another child and being able to welcome another child into her home. And so if Catholic Social Services is able to start placing those children again, those are just two homes, but there are many more who are welcome, who are ready to welcome more kids. And so this means those doors are open. Those kids can be placed. and we can continue on with having a really productive system and a place where women of color like Sharonelle and Tony can go to get the support that they're looking for for their families and a system where you have Catholic agencies and Jewish agencies and evangelical agencies and secular agencies and everybody just coming together to find homes for kids. That's what we want.

That is the ultimate goal. And I'm really hopeful that after the Supreme Court rules in this case, that's what we'll have. Thank you. That's the perfect word to end on. So let me just thank you, Lori. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Malka, for joining us today. Thank you to the audience.

I know everyone's kind of zoomed out six or seven months into coronavirus. But thank you for joining us. And let me add, if you work on the hill, if you work at a think tank, or even if you just have a question that you didn't get a chance to answer, there's contact information on the screen. feel free to reach out. We'd love to continue the conversation. And then one housekeeping note immediately after this event is finished, you're going to receive a survey via email.

And we hope you'll complete it so that we can have an idea of what you enjoyed, what you didn't enjoy, how we can make this better for the future. And then to see future events, you can go to www.heritage.org backslash events. One week from today at this very same time, this very same place, I'll be. doing an interview with Robert George from Princeton, with Carter Sneed, from the University of Notre Dame Law School, and with Yuval Levine from the American Enterprise Institute. On Carter has just published a book, What It Means to Be Human. We're going to be discussing bioethics, what it all means going forward for the beginning of life, for the end of life,

for the creation of life. So if you're interested in today's discussion, you might be interested to join us next week. You can check it all out online. Thank you to our three panelists. Thank you to the audience. And have a good afternoon. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find The Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all on Monday.

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