From the ACLU, this is at Liberty.

I'm Molly Kaplan, your host.

The city of Philadelphia learned in March 2018 that two of the agencies it had hired to provide foster care services would not, based on religious objection,

accept same-sex couples as foster parents.

The city then told the agencies their contracts with the city were in jeopardy,

unless they complied with basic non-discrimination requirements.

While one of the agencies agreed to comply, the other, Catholic Social Services or CSS refused.

Instead, CSS sued the city, claiming the Constitution gives it the right to opt out of the nondiscrimination requirement.

After a lower court and a federal circuit court ruled in the city's favor, CSS appealed to the Supreme Court.

The case, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, has implications not only for the future of foster care, but for the protection of

all people from discrimination in the name of religion. Arguments in the case are set for this

November 4th. Joining us to discuss the case and what's at stake is Louise Melling, Deputy Legal

Director of the ACLU. Louise, welcome to the podcast, and thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me. Louise, I wonder if you can start by orienting us a little bit with

regards to the case Fulton v. City of Philadelphia in which the Supreme Court will hear this November. I gave a bit of

the background in the introduction, but I was wondering if for the listeners you could lay out some more

of the groundwork. Sure, I'd be happy to. Fult, this is a case involving the city of Philadelphia's

contracts for purposes of entities taking up the mantle of providing foster care.

The city is responsible for the safety of children.

So on occasions, the city places kids in foster care in order to provide a secure home for them.

For some number of years, Catholic Social Services has been one of the contractors with the city.

The city learned that Catholic Social Services was unwilling to

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