John,

As you’ve probably seen, the Supreme Court issued a 9-0 ruling today in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, the case involving a religiously affiliated and taxpayer-funded foster care agency that refused to certify same-sex couples as foster parents.

More analysis and opinions will be coming out in the days and months ahead, but what you need to know is this:

While the Court ruled in favor of the agency (Catholic Social Services), they did so on the narrowest possible grounds. This means that governments are still able to prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ foster and adoptive parents, and should continue to do so for the over 400,000 children currently in foster care.

This decision could have created a broad new license to discriminate or created a right for taxpayer-funded foster care agencies to discriminate. It didn’t. But our work is still far from over.

Take action now and tell your Senators to pass the Equality Act and protect LGBTQ people from discrimination.

29 states still do not have laws that explicitly protect LGBTQ people from being discriminated against. That’s why we’re calling on Congress to pass the Equality Act. Because no one should have to live in fear of discrimination simply because of who they are.

Tell your Senators: It’s time for our nation’s laws to catch up to our nation’s values and protect all Americans from such unfair treatment.

Thank you for all you do,


Ian Palmquist
Deputy Director
Equality Federation