Dominicans who care for poor cancer patients sue over state’s transgender mandates

HAWTHORNE, N.Y. (OSV News) — The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who operate a 42-bed nursing home that provides palliative care for the dying poor, are suing New York state over a 2024 law requiring long-term care facilities to use preferred pronouns and assign rooms based on gender identity.

The facility, called Rosary Hill, serves cancer patients.

The lawsuit, filed April 6, argues that the law violates the religious order’s right to the free exercise of their religion as protected by the First Amendment and their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment as well as Catholic teachings about gender identity.

The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne operate “in accordance” with the U.S. Catholic bishops’ “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” and “the teachings of the Catholic Church,” the lawsuit states. “They cannot comply with the mandate without violating these sincerely held religious beliefs.”

A state public health law known as the Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights for LGBTQ+ New Yorkers and People Living with HIV mandates that nursing homes use a resident’s chosen name/pronouns and honor rooming requests based on gender identity. The law took effect May 28, 2024.

“‘Transgender medicine’ can change surface appearance but never sex. And Scripture forbids lying to another about reality,” the lawsuit says. “Requiring a person to identify another by a sex other than his or her God-gifted sex would therefore require such a person to act against central, unchangeable and architectural teachings of the Catholic faith. It would contradict the teachings of the Bible concerning God’s creative sovereignty, contradict reason and truth, and betray our sacred obligation not to knowingly harm other persons, particularly the most vulnerable.”

Additionally, it added, “the implications are so much greater than whether to utter the words ‘he’ or ‘she.’ Indeed, to demand that a Catholic deny another’s sex is to require him or her to affirm another religious worldview.”

The sisters’ home for the dying poor, the lawsuit states, “operates single-sex facilities when appropriate. For example, Rosary Hill Home will only room its patients in single-sex rooms. Male patients must room with male patients, and female patients must room with female patients. Rosary Hill Home also separates the floors of its facilities by sex, alternating men and women’s floors.”

Guidance from the state Department of Health just before the law took effect told nursing homes they were required to “ensure that at least once every two years, each facility staff member who works directly with residents receives training on cultural competency focusing on residents who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and/or residents living with HIV.”

The lawsuit states that the law “significantly harms Plaintiffs’ ability to associate with like-minded individuals who share their religious beliefs and to advocate their religious viewpoints. The Mandate fails strict scrutiny. Defendants cannot demonstrate a compelling governmental interest in forcing Plaintiffs to associate with individuals indoctrinated in ideology contrary to their religious beliefs, nor that the Mandate is the least restrictive means of achieving any such interest.”

It further notes that the mandate “discriminates between religious groups by exempting the Church of Christ, Scientist and its affiliates while denying any exemption to Catholic organizations. If the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne and Rosary Hill Home do not comply, they face fines, injunctions, potential loss of licensing, and imprisonment.”

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in White Plains by the Idaho law firm of First & Fourteenth. Named as defendants are New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and four administrators in the New York State Department of Health.

“We have one mission. It is to provide comfort and skilled care to persons dying of cancer,” Mother Marie Edward Deutsch, superior general of the order, said in a statement provided to OSV News April 10.

“We do this without insurance or government funds. We do it without discriminating on the basis of race, religion, or sex. We do it because Jesus taught us that, when the least among us are sick, we should care for them, as if they were Christ himself,” she said.

“New York’s gender ideology mandates not only violate our Catholic values, they threaten our existence with fines, injunctions, license revocation, and even jail time. This is why we were forced to go to court to seek protection of our religious exercise and freedom of speech,” Mother Marie Edward added.

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop (1851-1926), a daughter of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, founded the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, Congregation of St. Rose of Lima, in 1900. She took the name Mother Mary Alphonsa. The order’s apostolate is the Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer.

Mother Mary Alphonsa is a candidate for sainthood, and on March 19, 2024, the Vatican issued a decree declaring her “Venerable.”

A date for a hearing on the lawsuit is pending.

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