religion

Many years ago, I served in Pennsylvania state government and among my responsibilities was the development and implementation of family resource centers (FRCs), which are community-based family support programs that provide easily accessible services in a culturally relevant manner.

Among the many ways Donald Trump is seeking to leave a lasting imprint on the government in the final days of a beleaguered presidency, the administration this week erased Obama-era rules that prohibited publicly funded, faith-based social service providers from discriminating on the basis of factors such as sexual orientation or religion.

Two significant developments occurred this week that have the potential to shape the limits of how far faith-based, publicly funded child welfare agencies can go in selectively choosing what foster or adoptive parents they are willing to work with.

A Catholic mother’s lawsuit alleging bedrock religious discrimination by South Carolina’s largest child-placement agency with the blessing of state and federal officials may proceed, a federal judge ruled this week, rejecting calls to throw out her case.

As we reported yesterday, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a case related to the constitutionality of faith-based discrimination in child welfare. Some religiously affiliated providers, lead among them Catholic Social Services (CSS), want that right.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether faith-based child welfare providers have a constitutional right to discriminate against certain foster and adoptive parents, even if it’s done with taxpayer dollars.

The last calendar year of the ‘10s has come and gone, and the fields of child welfare and juvenile justice move on to a new decade. For the past two weeks, The Imprint has counted down some of our top storylines from 2019.

We’re counting down 10 of the biggest stories The Imprint published in 2019. Each day, we’ll connect readers with a few links to our coverage on a big story from this past year.