## Facts

- A Catholic archdiocesan leader implemented a directive consistent with Vatican teaching that Catholic social-service agencies should not place children for adoption with same-sex couples.
- In response, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution addressed to the Cardinal and the Vatican urging withdrawal of the directive.
- The resolution characterized the directive as “unacceptable,” “insulting,” and “callous,” and described the Vatican’s actions as “meddling by a foreign country.”
- The resolution stated that same-sex couples were as qualified as opposite-sex couples to adopt children and urged the local Archdiocese to defy the Vatican directive.
- A Catholic civil-rights organization and two San Francisco Catholic residents alleged the resolution conveyed governmental disapproval of their religion and made them feel like disfavored “outsiders,” causing them to avoid contact with city government.
- Plaintiffs sued the City and County of San Francisco and its Board of Supervisors under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, asserting an Establishment Clause violation.
- The district court dismissed the complaint for lack of standing and failure to state a claim; a Ninth Circuit panel affirmed on standing, but the panel decision was vacated on rehearing en banc.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs had Article III standing based on alleged stigmatic and dignitary injury from a city resolution criticizing Catholic doctrine and making adherents feel like outsiders.
2. Whether a non-coercive, purely expressive city resolution strongly condemning a religiously grounded policy position constitutes unconstitutional government hostility toward religion under the Establishment Clause.

## Decision

- The en banc Ninth Circuit held plaintiffs had Article III standing.
- The court nonetheless affirmed dismissal because the complaint did not state an Establishment Clause violation.
- The court treated the resolution as non-coercive government expression in a public-policy dispute rather than an official act establishing irreligion or targeting Catholics as second-class citizens.

## Legal Principles

- In Establishment Clause “message” cases, plaintiffs may establish injury-in-fact when they directly experience a governmental message that allegedly disparages them as community members because of their religious identity.
- Purely expressive government speech, without coercion, legal penalties, or allocation of benefits based on religion, is less likely to violate the Establishment Clause.
- The Establishment Clause bars official hostility to religion as such, but it does not categorically prohibit sharp governmental criticism of religiously motivated positions in the course of public-policy debate.
- Context matters: an objective observer standard may consider the history and setting to determine whether the government action communicates disapproval of a faith itself or disagreement with a specific policy position associated with a religious authority.

## Conclusion

The en banc court allowed Catholic plaintiffs to sue based on alleged outsider-status injury from an official resolution, but held that the city’s harsh condemnation of a Vatican adoption directive was non-coercive policy speech and, in context, did not amount to unconstitutional government hostility toward religion.


Catholic League for Civil & Religious Rights v. City & County of San Francisco, 624 F.3d 1043 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc)