U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito swears-in new Secretary of Defense Mark Esper Tuesday, July 23, 2019, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Justice Alito’s Warning
In Massachusetts, a Catholic couple has been deemed unfit for a foster-care license because the couple’s beliefs are “insufficiently progressive.”
The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families’s decision to deny Michael and Kitty Burke’s foster-care application comes less than a decade after the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that states could not deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In a short but tart dissent, Justice (Samuel) Alito raised a red flag that Justice Anthony Kennedy, author of the majority opinion, glided over in his enthusiasm for making his own preferences law. Whatever this decision was, Justice Alito warned, Obergefell was not a victory for a live-and-let-live America.
According to Justice Alito
It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy. In the course of its opinion, the majority compares traditional marriage laws to laws that denied equal treatment for African-Americans and women. . . . The implications of this analogy will be exploited by those who are determined to stamp out every vestige of dissent.
The “loving couple” wanted to adopt through Massachusetts’s foster-care program, where the Burkes are willing to accept children of any race, culture or ethnicity. Even some with special needs, reports William McGurn in the WSJ.
Mr. Burke deployed to Iraq as a Marine, while Mrs. Burke is a former paraprofessional for kids with special needs. The stars seemed aligned for a fairy-tale ending for some lucky child.
The state, in its assessment of the Burkes, acknowledged the family’s “strengths.” In the license study describing the family, the Massachusetts DCF noted that “Kitty and Mike are devoutly Roman Catholic and not only attend church with regular frequency, they both also work for local churches as musicians.”
An Endorsement Turns to an Indictment
Care was taken to note that the Burkes are “lovely people,” Also noted by their license study regarding LGBT issues:
“(T)heir faith is not supportive and neither are they.”
Ultimately the license review team concluded the Burkes “would not be affirming to a child who identified as LGBTQIA.”
After they were rejected, the Burkes have filed a lawsuit in federal court, claiming their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion have been violated.
Becket Law, which defends religious liberty, is chaired by William P. Mumma, who is representing the Burkes, continues Mr. McGurn.
Like Justice Alito, (Mumma) understands that the new orthodoxy on sex and marriage has its own dogmas, high priests and enforcers. Thus do ordinary Americans find themselves likened to terrorists by everyone from their local school boards to the FBI, which recently targeted Catholics who attend traditional Latin Mass.
Today’s landscape is a far cry from what Justice Kennedy so glibly promised in Obergefell.
In what was almost an afterthought, (Kennedy) did allow that many who opposed same-sex marriage did so based on “decent and honorable” premises, and that their First Amendment rights still stand.
When Obergefell was decided, skeptics were repeatedly asked: What could it possibly matter to you if the Supreme Court allows people of the same sex to get married?
As Mr. McGurn pointedly writes, just “ask Mike and Kitty Burke” why it matters.
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