The draconian application of state and local sexual orientation and gender identity anti-discrimination laws is pushing out groups with successful track records in serving our nation’s neediest children. Catholic foster care and adoption organizations in the District of Columbia, Boston, San Francisco, and Illinois have shut their doors rather than violate their church’s religious teaching on marriage.

Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia is fighting these ideological strong-arm tactics in federal court, and fighting for the needy kids it serves in the process. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to decide whether to accept their case. Granting review would be the high court’s first step in protecting religious freedom for faith-based groups and the families that desire to work with them to offer stable and loving homes to kids in the most desperate circumstances. This would be an important step to redress a grave injustice in the City of Brotherly Love.