Posted on 04/28/2017 7:41:05 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Does California’s non-discrimination law on sexual orientation override a Catholic hospital’s freedom of religious expression? A new lawsuit from the ACLU claims yes, filed on behalf of a patient denied an elective hysterectomy as part of a surgical transition from female to male. Despite having arranged an emergency referral to another hospital which did conduct the operation, the transgender patient and the ACLU want Catholic hospitals forced to perform these surgeries in the future:
More than seven months after a Dignity Health hospital refused a hysterectomy to a Sacramento-area transgender patient, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Wednesday on his behalf.
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that Dignity discriminated against Evan Michael Minton, 35, a former state Capitol legislative aide, when he sought a hysterectomy as part of his transition from female to male.
Last summer, Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael, part of the Dignity Health chain, abruptly canceled Minton’s surgery the day before it was scheduled to take place. His doctor eventually performed the procedure at another Sacramento-area hospital, but the initial denial still causes frustration and disappointment, Minton said. After months of reflection, he decided to take legal action against the San Francisco-based hospital chain.
“It devastated me, and I don’t want it to affect my transgender brothers and sisters the way it affected me,” Minton said Tuesday. “No one should have to go through that.”
The plaintiffs allege that the hospital and its network violated the state’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on several criteria, including “their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, or sexual orientation.” Later in the code, the law further states that all of these include “a perception” by the person of having any of the “characteristics” of certain protected classes within these criteria. Literally, that could be taken to enforce the Unruh Act on behalf of Rachel Dolezal, but was more clearly intended to give the widest possible coverage for transgendered people.
Note too that this means the lawsuit is based specifically on the transgender motives for the surgery, not a need for prophylactic removal for health reasons, ie, to avoid a genetic predisposition to cancer. The ACLU can’t even argue it was simply for sterilization either, because Catholic hospitals won’t do vasectomies either.
The state law contains no conscience-protection clauses for religious belief, which might make for a strong case — if the lawsuit stays entirely within the California state court system. The prospects for this ending up in federal court are high, however, especially given the stakes involved. The Catholic Church operates over six hundred hospitals in the US, accounting for 15% of all hospital beds in the US as of 2013. If this ruling stands in California, the ACLU would push it in every state, so the Catholic Church has lots of incentive to take this to federal court.
Once there, the church can use the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) as well as an explicit appeal to the First Amendment’s protection of religious expression as its defense. The Catholic Church operates its hospitals and clinics as a direct expression of faith, a long tradition that literally extends much further back than the founding of the US. The RFRA law forces stricter scrutiny of laws that infringe on legitimate religious expression (and not just worship) by requiring courts to use a balancing test. Do the plaintiffs raise a question of compelling state interest, and does it require the intervention demanded as the minimum method of serving it?
Even if there were a compelling state interest in transgender surgeries — itself a dubious notion — the court would have to determine that it’s so compelling that it overrides sincere Catholic religious belief on sterilization and gender identity. The Catholic Church has long-standing and often-expressed positions on these issues, and it would be almost impossible for the plaintiffs to argue that it’s not a fundamental doctrine of Catholic faith. Furthermore, the court would have to find that forcing Catholic hospitals to conduct these surgeries would be the least intrusive method of serving that compelling state interest. The circumstances of this case amply demonstrate that’s not the case; not only are there other options in the marketplace, but the respondents helped make arrangements for the surgery to take place using another option. Catholic hospitals are a significant share of the market, but they’re not a monopoly, or anywhere close to it.
Granted, this relies on a rational federal judge hearing the case, and we’ve seen some demonstrations of poor judicial temperament lately, particularly in California. There is little chance that a RFRA defense would not result in an appeal if denied, though, and even if the 9th Circuit might not be terribly sympathetic to that argument, the Supreme Court would almost certainly be. This isn’t a lawsuit that intends to correct an injustice — it’s yet another example of lawfare designed to drive Catholic health services into closure.
Laughing, Thanks.
Now we classify Bob Hope with Churchill as not PC to quote?
I wonder when these “trans trenders” will jump off the lib bandwagon and wake up and get the mental help they need.
It could get it done for free at the 72 Virgins Medical Center in Raqqa.
Anybody else notice, that since the Supreme Court ruled for nationwide homosexual marriage, that we are hearing more and more about “transsexual” or “transgender” issues???
It seems as if, now that the “LGBT” peoples have accomplish the goal of redefining marriage in our civil laws, that now they are moving on to other issues.
Were their lives complete now that we have homosexual marriage? No. All that did was move the goal posts. Now that it is a given that we have homosexual marriage, now they are moving on to the “T” peoples within the “LGBT” framework. And the same horse blank is playing out. We are bigoted if we oppose “transgender” people in the wrong bathroom. We are bigoted if we oppose “equal” rights for the “T” peoples. Yadda yadda yadda. It’s the same horse blank and the same playbook.
Sheesh..... To listen to some of this stuff, you would swear you just haven’t lived until you have had your sex change operations and hormones, and then you can live the life you were meant to live..........
In general, it’s contrary to Catholic moral doctrine to remove (or destroy the normal function of) a healthy organ. She would have (or at least should have) gotten the same answer if she had thought amputees were cool and had asked to have her arm cut off.
“After months of reflection...” BARF!
Coming soon to a courtroom near you: ACLU sues Christian book store (located beside an adult book store) for refusing to sell porn magazines. Until judges throw out these lawsuits and sanction the filing attorneys, this BS will continue to grow.
Obvious setup. Who would expect a Catholic Hospital would have a transgender trained plastic surgeon and who would want one from somebody that is inexperience and with no desire.
Next they’re going to make transgender surgery a requirement in Medical school.
CHOOSE ANOTHER HOSPITAL...
but of course the real issue is money and forcing a catholic hospital to do something GOD is against...
They never go after Muslims.
The courts have become weaponized by the left and need to be constitutionally restructured.
She was smacked with the ugly stick; sad but I hope she realizes impersonating an ugly man is not likely to solve any problems.
This insanity has to be squashed.
No hospital or doctor would perform a surgery to remove a limb just because someone identified as disabled....except in England
Next it will be LGBTP - the P will be for pedophile. It will be a “civil right” for perverts to have “access” to your children and it will be a “hate crime” to protect them. At that point the government will have become just another gang of predators and criminals, like ISIS.
The bottom line, so to speak, homos are never satisfied.
Hopkins quit doing these surgeries because their studies showed the patients were better served by serious mental health interventions.
Delusional thinking should not be treated surgically
Post
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folks!
"Will have become"? Like, at some future time? Tagline
Why isn’t it just simple enough to say they don’t have any doctors there that do that type of surgery?
You could not go to a heart surgeon and demand he do cosmetic surgery
”14th Amendment, Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States [emphasis added]; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
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