Yesterday, attorneys for the two remaining Catholic Charities agencies involved in a lawsuit against the State of Illinois, seeking to reverse a decision by the Department of Children and Family Services to end its contractual relationship with these agencies to provide state-funded foster care and adoption services, announced that they would end the litigation. The Catholic Charities agencies refused to provide services to lesbian and gay male couples, including couples who have a civil union under Illinois’ new law.

The following can be attributed to Benjamin Wolf, Associate Legal Director for the ACLU of Illinois:

We intervened in this case, to insure that only the best interests of children in DCFS care, and not the contrary religious values of private care providers, guide all foster care and adoption placements, a standard long recognized by professional child welfare experts. Children in Illinois are best served when there are as many and as diverse placement opportunities as possible. There is no child welfare basis to exclude gay people from being parents, as recognized by every major child welfare group. All children, in every region of Illinois, deserve the widest possible pool of qualified parents.

We hope the end of this suit and the transfer of children to agencies that do not discriminate marks a significant milestone in our state’s effort to create a first class child welfare system that serves all children and families in Illinois.

We believe that Catholic Charities has acted in the best interest of the children who are in the state’s care by dropping its case challenging Illinois’ policy of prohibiting discrimination against gay and lesbian parents in the provision of foster care and adoption services. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services now can focus on finding safe, permanent homes for children in its care without disruption and further conflict.

###

Catholic Charities in Illinois will no longer provide foster care services, the Chicago Tribune reports. The diocese in the remaining areas of Joliet, Springfield and Belleville, where a decision to end foster services had yet to be made, have dropped their lawsuit against the Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) and will begin to transfer over 1,000 foster children to other programs in their regions. The ACLU of Illinois intervened in the suit on behalf of children in the care of DCFS as well as a Champaign lesbian couple with a civil union, who planned to become foster parents. This decision marks an end to a battle that began once Illinois' civil union law went into effect in the spring.

In July, the state declined to renew foster care and adoption contracts with Catholic Charities. A transition plan for more than 2,000 children began with a deadline of Nov. 30.

Ottawa-based Youth Service Bureau of Illinois Valley agreed to take all of Catholic Charities' cases in Rockford. In Peoria, a separate child welfare agency was formed to take all of Catholic Charities' cases and provide a seamless transition for children.

With a deadline looming and no judge willing to halt the transition process, the remaining three agencies decided to call it quits.

Read the article.

Trib Local updates us on the drug testing proposal at Lake Zurich High School. The school decided to scrap the proposal entirely after discovering that 76% of parents who participated in a poll opposed the idea. Trib Local spoke with ACLU of Illinois' Communications Director Ed Yohnka:

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois has already weighed in. Director of Communications and Public Policy Edwin Yohnka called the testing an invasion of the privacy of people without any suspicion.

"A school that engages in such a process undermines the relationships teachers and administrators hope to build with students,” Yohnka said. He added that a school district with drug testing is likely to “gain very little information” while “embarrassing” students.

Read the whole article.