Marriage Relationships and Family Protections

On Wednesday’s fraught post-election morning, the Supreme Court, with newly installed Justice Amy Coney Barrett on the bench, heard argument in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a case with major implications for children in foster care, for LGBTQ people, and for anyone seeking government services.

Multiple federal district courts found the U.S. Department of State’s refusal to recognize the U.S. citizenship of the children born abroad to two married same-sex, U.S. citizen couples to be unlawful.

A federal district judge today adopted the recommendation of a magistrate judge and struck down as unconstitutional the U.S. Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) categorical denial of survivor’s benefits to surviving same-sex partners who were barred from marrying due to discriminatory state marriage bans.

Today, Lambda Legal submitted a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of itself and 26 local, state, and national organizations that serve LGBTQ youth urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold an appellate court ruling denying Catholic Social Services’ (“CSS”) request that Philadelphia be ordered to contract with CSS for foster parent licensing and recruitment while allowing CSS to refuse to license same-sex couples to foster children who can’t safely return to their own homes.