The U.S. Department of Justice has joined a federal lawsuit filed by the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, lending support to the Catholic religious community’s challenge against a New York law they argue forces them to violate their deeply held religious beliefs while caring for the terminally ill.
According to National Review, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who have operated Rosary Hill Home in Thornwood, New York, for more than 120 years, filed suit earlier this year after the state enacted requirements affecting long-term care facilities under the LGBTQ Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights.
The law requires nursing facilities to recognize a resident’s self-identified gender identity in several areas, including the use of preferred pronouns, access to bathrooms, and housing arrangements based on a resident’s declared gender identity rather than biological sex. It also requires facilities to display notices stating they do not discriminate based on gender identity, sexual orientation, or HIV status and mandates recurring cultural competency training.
According to National Review, the Department of Justice formally notified the U.S. District Court that it intends to intervene in the case, arguing that the state’s actions unlawfully burden religious organizations.
“States should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of woke gender ideology,” Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet K. Dhillon, said in a statement.
Dhillon continued, “For more than a century, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have provided free palliative care to indigent cancer patients in their last days. New York’s law would force these religious women to choose between their faith and their license if they wish to continue serving the dying.”
According to National Review, the Justice Department argues that New York’s law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it grants a religious exemption to facilities affiliated with the Church of Christ, Scientist, while Catholic organizations have not received a comparable exemption.
The sisters reportedly sought an exemption from the state in April but had not received a response. According to National Review, their legal counsel said the lack of action was especially concerning because Christian Science facilities had already been granted accommodations under the law.
Rosary Hill Home, a 42-bed nursing facility that provides free palliative care for indigent cancer patients, maintains that complying with the law would require the sisters to act contrary to Catholic teaching. According to the lawsuit, compliance would constitute an “act against central, unchangeable, and architectural teachings of the Catholic faith.”
According to National Review, facilities that violate the law may face escalating penalties beginning with a $2,000 fine for an initial violation, increasing to $10,000, with the possibility of up to one year in prison for continued noncompliance.
The case now moves forward with the support of the Department of Justice, setting the stage for a legal dispute that could have significant implications for religious liberty, conscience protections, and the ability of Catholic ministries to carry out their charitable missions in accordance with their faith.
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