patrick.net

In a speech to the Federalist Society in November, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito reiterated his concern that ‘in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right’. Small wonder that the subject was on his mind. A week earlier, the Court had heard oral arguments in the latest religious-liberty case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. In it, Catholic Social Services — one of some 30 agencies used by the city to place foster children in private homes — claimed religious exemption for its policy of placing kids in traditional mom-and-dad family settings.

So far, one might think, so unremarkable: a Catholic agency conforms its good works to Catholic principles. But what about nontraditional couples — like those of the same sex? As it happens, CSS was not approached by any such couples looking for kids — likely because all the other 30 agencies are available to them. In fact, CSS would even refer same-sex couples to those other agencies, if needed. Thus far, at least, Philadelphia seems to have enjoyed a live-and-let-live solution to a pluralist polity in which diverse points of view coexist. No one appears to have suffered from CSS’s policies, and many kids seem to have been helped.

So why did Philadelphia stop referring foster children to CSS, thus prompting the suit that has put this case before the Court? As Justice Alito observed sharply, ‘If we are honest about what’s really going on here, it’s not about ensuring that same-sex couples in Philadelphia have the opportunity to be foster parents. It’s the fact [that] the city can’t stand the message that Catholic Social Services and the archdiocese are sending by continuing to adhere to the old-fashioned view about marriage.’ Justice Brett Kavanaugh, too, remarked upon the aggression of CSS’s adversaries. Philadelphia, he observed, was ‘looking for a fight’ in ceasing its referrals.

Welcome to 2020, and one more woke effort to put a Christian charity out of business.

The Philadelphia case joins a growing list in which do-gooding by Certain People has been punished with financially and otherwise draining lawsuits — even when, as in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the harm to anyone is nonexistent. The Little Sisters of the Poor have been dragged through the courts for years, deposed and otherwise menaced, even though their alleged social crime — objecting to being forced to provide contraception — has not impeded a single soul, then or now, from locating all manner of such devices across the land. Masterpiece Cakes in Colorado and Memories Pizza in Indiana were similarly hounded for refusing to participate in same-sex weddings — even though none of the antagonistic parties were at risk of lacking pizza or cakes, or anything nuptial at all following Obergefell v. Hodges. ...

one suspects that a more seismic answer to the question of today’s animus against Christians and their works may also be in order, and that it relates to the implosion of the traditional western family. The American family has changed radically during the past 60 years. Less than one fifth of households now conform to the ‘nuclear family’ model of mother, father and children. In 1960, that number was 45 percent.

The American family has also shrunk: children today are considerably less likely to have siblings — and by extension, cousins, aunts and uncles — than they were 60 years ago. Almost 30 percent of all households consist of just one person. Some 40 percent of all children lack a biological father in the home. ...

Some of these outcomes — such as the connections between disrupted homes on the one hand and childhood and adolescent dysfunction on the other — have been mapped well by sociologists and related experts for several decades now. ...

That familial loss had something to do with the 2020 protests is also revealed by some of BLM’s obnoxious theatrics: shining flashlights into families’ homes, waking families in the middle of the night by screaming, and disrupting outdoor meals. These last misanthropic forays are not surprising tactics for BLM. They have by now a substantial history in the United States. #BlackBrunch, a similar set of movements that has also aggressively interrupted diners in cities around the country, began more than five years ago in Oakland. The stated purpose of these intrusions is to invade ‘traditionally white spaces’ to raise awareness of black suffering.

But what is specifically ‘white’ about dining out? More telling is what is being disrupted here. Overwhelmingly, people dine out with family and friends — their smallest and dearest communities. In the rage caught on video after video this summer, another possibility for the origin of these disruptions emerges: resentment of those who enjoy their social and familial ties. ...

The notion that boys or girls thrive around males to whom they are not biologically related is overruled by generations of social science about the risks of just that.