Professor Robin Fretwell Wilson was quoted in a recent article by the San Diego Union-Tribune on religious rights vs. the rights of youth in foster care. A Catholic nonprofit, Children of the Immaculate Heart, is in a licensing dispute with the state of California over a shelter that has yet to open and is intended to house sex-trafficked teenage girls. The nonprofit alleges that the government is infringing upon their freedom to practice their religion by forcing them to agree to practices they find religiously objectionable (ie: driving teen victims to abortion clinics). 

“We are talking about on one hand these children who need homes, and this group is good at doing this work. We want them to do that work,” Wilson said. “But we want them to do that work in a way that doesn’t double victimize children.”

At the same time, the longer the government fails to act on the shelter’s application without reason, “the more it looks like a religious animus,” Wilson said.

Read the full article at sandiegotribune.com.