After losing a push to dismiss a lawsuit by a lesbian couple barred from fostering a refugee child, the government and a Catholic nonprofit denied most of the women’s allegations in answers filed Wednesday.

The case, Marouf v. Azar, was delayed by more than a year as the defendants argued the plaintiffs didn’t have standing to sue, and the government struggled to secure a new foster care contractor that didn’t have religious objections to placing refugee children with same-sex couples.