ACLU of Kentucky

United States District Court. On behalf of a former KBHC social worker who was fired for being a lesbian as well as a coalition of religious leaders and citizens, the national ACLU’s Lesbian and Gay Rights Project and the ACLU of Kentucky, along with the national office of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, filed this lawsuit against KBHC and the state. The lawsuit contends that because KBHC receives most of its money from the state to provide foster care for the state’s wards, its religion-based discrimination against gays and lesbians violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause. The case also asserts that KBHC is a pervasively sectarian institution that, independent of its employment policies, cannot constitutionally receive government funding.

The plaintiffs seek to prohibit KBHC from continuing its religious discrimination or, if it refuses to do so, to give up its state funding.

U.S. District Judge Charles R. Simpson III dismissed most of the First Amendment claims related to employment and the Sixth Circuit held that it does not yet have jurisdiction to hear our appeal from that decision. The case now has returned to Judge Simpson’s court, where we seek to persuade him that the state’s funding of pervasively sectarian activities is unconstitutional. Once the court decides that issue, the parties will be in a position to appeal the entire case to the Sixth Circuit.