Defining Matters
May 03, 2019

Kramer Levin Amicus Brief Helps Secure Third Circuit Victory Rejecting Religious Exemption From LGBT Equality in Foster Care Placements

On April 23, 2019, the Third Circuit ruled in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia that a foster care agency which refuses to certify otherwise qualified same-sex couples as foster parents is not entitled to a preliminary injunction on First Amendment grounds that would require the City of Philadelphia to resume their contractual relationship. Kramer Levin previously filed an amicus brief on behalf of major religious organizations and individual faith leaders – including the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); the Central Conference of American Rabbis; and the Central Atlantic, Penn Northeast, Pennsylvania Southeast, and Penn West Conferences of the United Church of Christ, among others – urging the Court to rule as it did, against the foster care agency.

The Kramer Levin brief documented the growing support among mainstream U.S religions for fair and equal treatment under the law for LGBT individuals and their families. The brief opposed arguments by the foster care agency that enforcing the antidiscrimination obligations to which it agreed impinged upon its religious liberty. The Third Circuit found the agency’s free exercise arguments unpersuasive and stated in its opinion: “If all comment on religiously motivated conduct by those enforcing neutral, generally applicable laws against discrimination is construed as ill will against the religious belief itself, then Smith is a dead letter, and the nation’s civil rights laws might as well be dead.”

The Kramer Levin team that drafted the brief includes Litigation partners Jeffrey S. Trachtman and Norman C. Simon and special counsel Tobias B. Jacoby and Jason M. Moff, with assistance from associate Elise Funke and paralegal Cedric Comeau.

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