The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it is intervening in a lawsuit to support Catholic nuns who say a transgender policy in New York would force them to choose between their faith and the terminal cancer patients they care for.
“States should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of woke gender ideology,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
An order of Catholic nuns called the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne filed a lawsuit against New York in April challenging a 2023 law that bans long-term care facilities “from discriminating against any resident on the basis of a resident’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or HIV status,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) office said in a press release at the time.
“The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who operate a home for dying cancer patients in Westchester County, argue New York’s law could subject them to fines, loss of their operating license and other penalties if they refuse to comply with requirements related to gender identity, pronouns, room assignments and access to sex-specific facilities,” Fox News reported.
The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne reportedly face fines of up to $2,000 per violation and up to $5,000 fines, court-ordered compliance, loss of licensing, and even prison time and fines of up to $10,000 if they do not bend the knee to the state, according to the report.
“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,” Dhillon added.
The nuns say the law would specifically require them to assign patients to rooms according to their “gender identity” rather than their biological reality and would also require them to allow those individuals to use opposite-sex bathrooms, use preferred pronouns, and have staff gender ideology trainings, per the report.
The sisters pointed out in their lawsuit that in the last four-year reporting period, the New York State Department of Health has not received any complaints about them from residents. The sisters further contrasted that point with the “more than 55,000 complaints against other nursing homes” during the same period.
Martin Nussbaum, general counsel for Catholic Benefits Association, who is representing the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, told the outlet that the DOJ’s intervention in the lawsuit “sends a welcome signal that a state’s policy preference for gender ideology does not trump the protection for religious freedom embedded in our country’s DNA.”
A spokesperson for Hochul told the outlet the DOJ’s action is “just another sad attempt by the Trump administration to weaponize the justice system to attack political opponents in an election year.”
“New York’s decision to move to a single fiscal intermediary has already saved taxpayers more than a billion dollars while deterring fraud, waste and abuse. As many courts have already held, the transition to a single fiscal intermediary was lawful and appropriate. We are confident the facts are on our side,” the spokesperson said.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton
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