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The Catholic Dioceses of Springfield, Peoria, and Joliet, Illinois have filed a lawsuit against the State of Illinois for trying to force them out of the adoption business because of their religious beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman. The Dioceses are represented by Chicago’s Thomas More Society, headed by veteran pro-life and religious liberties attorney Thomas Brejcha. The Thomas More Society has made a powerful argument that the state officials in Illinois are overreaching to punish Catholic agencies because of their religious beliefs, in violation of state laws that actually protect Christian agencies from government discrimination. The State has asserted that Illinois’ civil unions law and “public accommodations” law prohibit Catholic agencies from doing adoptions because of their religious beliefs and practices upholding the traditional definition of marriage. But as the Thomas More Society’s complaint shows, those laws do not mandate such a conclusion, and another law in Illinois works together with those laws to strongly protect the Dioceses’ right to practice their faith: the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act (IRFRA). This IRFRA argument is particularly powerful because recently an Illinois judge in another case held that, under IRFRA (and under other laws, but including IRFRA as a freestanding claim), Illinois government officials could not force pro-life pharmacists to dispense abortifacient and other religiously objectionable drugs. For similar reasons, IRFRA does not allow bureaucrats in Illinois to target religious adoption agencies for exclusion from adoption services. Families all over Illinois should be rooting on the Dioceses’ lawsuit and the Thomas More Society.
Governance by the consent of the governed - it can be revoked ya know...