Supreme Court sided with a Catholic group in its dispute with the city of Philadelphia over LGBTQ couples and foster care.

Supreme Court sided with a Catholic group in its dispute with the city of Philadelphia over LGBTQ couples and foster care.

Supreme Court on Thursday sided with Catholic Social Services in a battle that pitted religious freedom against anti-discrimination laws in Philadelphia and across the country.

The court declared that the private Catholic agency was entitled to renewal of its contract with the city for screening foster parents, even though the agency violated city law by refusing to consider married LGBTQ couples.

At issue was a decision by the city of Philadelphia to end its contract with Catholic Social Services for screening potential foster care parents.

The reason for all this equivocating on Thursday's decision is that the case brought by Catholic Social Services was aimed squarely at overturning a 1990 Supreme Court decision, called Employment Division versus Smith.

The city of Philadelphia, which has custody of about 5,000 abused and neglected children, contracts with 30 private agencies to provide foster care in group homes and for certification, placement and care of children in individual private foster care homes

The city's contracts ban discrimination against LGBTQ couples in the screening of foster parents, but Catholic Social Services, citing religious grounds, has a policy of refusing to consider and certify same-sex couples

But lawyer Neal Katyal, representing the city, countered that "you can't on Monday sign a contract that says we won't discriminate and on Tuesday go ahead and discriminate." And he noted that despite the loss of the screening contract, CSS continued to get millions of dollars from the city for running other kinds of foster care programs, including group homes