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ACLU sues Catholic hospital for refusing to perform transgender surgery
Hotair ^ | 04/28/2017 | Ed Morrissey

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.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: aclu; barf; catholic; surgery; transgender
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1 posted on 04/28/2017 7:41:05 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
OK, ACLU. If you absolutely insist we perform this operation.....


2 posted on 04/28/2017 7:43:35 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: SeekAndFind

Oh the horror. I’m sure they searched every available hospital nearby, in the state, in the country and this was the only one who could have done this operation...what a crock of BS,


3 posted on 04/28/2017 7:44:18 AM PDT by Beave Meister (Leave the gun. Take the cannoli....)
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To: SeekAndFind

Doctors who treat mental illness with a scalpel belongs in prison


4 posted on 04/28/2017 7:44:35 AM PDT by Bulwinkle (Alec, a.k.a. Daffy Duck)
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To: SeekAndFind

Absolutely vile organization.


5 posted on 04/28/2017 7:45:16 AM PDT by miss marmelstein
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To: SeekAndFind

If you think about it transgender surgery, genital mutilation and abortion are all real bad.


6 posted on 04/28/2017 7:46:54 AM PDT by Slyfox (Where's Reagan when we need him? Look in the mirror - the spirit of The Gipper lives within you.)
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To: SeekAndFind

First, mental illness is celebrated. Then it becomes compulsory.


7 posted on 04/28/2017 7:48:23 AM PDT by marron
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To: SeekAndFind
His doctor eventually performed the procedure at another Sacramento-area hospital, but the initial denial still causes frustration and disappointment, Minton said.
8 posted on 04/28/2017 7:48:59 AM PDT by Slyfox (Where's Reagan when we need him? Look in the mirror - the spirit of The Gipper lives within you.)
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To: Beave Meister; SeekAndFind
Another Coercive Leftist Ugly.

Obviously a strategic set-up. They just went hospital-shopping to set up their lawfare artillery and destroy Catholic healthcare.

I do feel sorry for this Evan person, who is being used as a political pawn as well as being sexually maimed. Exploiting patients who are mental ill or emotional distressed is disgusting, unethical, and should be considered criminal.

9 posted on 04/28/2017 7:49:12 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (They say what's up is down, they say what isn't, is, they put ideas in his head he thought were his.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Photo of the freakazoid
10 posted on 04/28/2017 7:50:13 AM PDT by heterosupremacist (Domine Iesu Christe, Filius Dei, miserere me peccatorem!)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

The downfall of the American Republic began when we abandoned the practice of Tar and Feathers.


11 posted on 04/28/2017 7:51:16 AM PDT by NorthMountain (The Democrats ... have lost their grip on reality -DJT)
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To: marron

“Everything not forbidden is compulsory.” Physicist Murray Gell-Mann..................


12 posted on 04/28/2017 7:51:23 AM PDT by Red Badger (Profanity is the sound of an ignorant mind trying to express itself.............)
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To: SeekAndFind

so now, we are saying that we have a constitutional right, to have the so called sex change operation????

It is a constitutional right, and every hospital must offer that particular procedure, as a matter of course???


13 posted on 04/28/2017 7:51:37 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: SeekAndFind

First of all, this tranSEXUAL (the proper word) stuff is PURELY COSMETIC - I.E., PURELY ELECTIVE.

Thus, any hospital should have the right to refuse an elective issue.

Next, I hear Johns Hopkins stopped doing this years ago because they think the risks outweigh the benefits (including PSYCHOLOGICAL issues). Why don’t they go for Hopkins? Why bother these little places?


14 posted on 04/28/2017 7:51:45 AM PDT by the OlLine Rebel (Common sense is an uncommon virtue./Federal-run medical care is as good as state-run DMVs.)
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To: heterosupremacist

It’s a buzzcut chick.


15 posted on 04/28/2017 7:51:50 AM PDT by NorthMountain (The Democrats ... have lost their grip on reality -DJT)
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To: marron

“I’ve just flown in from California, where they’ve made homosexuality legal. I thought I’d get out before they make it compulsory.” - Bob Hope, 1975


16 posted on 04/28/2017 7:52:13 AM PDT by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: SeekAndFind

Are you telling me in NoCal they couldn’t find another hospital to do this procedure? Another case of the left trying to sock it to a faith-based hospital on purpose.


17 posted on 04/28/2017 7:53:09 AM PDT by dowcaet
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To: Bulwinkle

Since the patient’s “problem” is mental, perhaps the hospital should offer to perform a brain transplant instead...


18 posted on 04/28/2017 7:53:36 AM PDT by pfony1
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To: SeekAndFind

“No one should have to go through that.”
= = =

Hey, most of life requires going through difficulties.
So get over ‘that’.

Now, to streamline this transition process I suggest that the ‘Mystery Gender 1*’ person coordinate with someone of ‘Mystery Gender 2*’ and they get head transplants with each other.

Just read yesterday that we will have brain translants by 2018.

*Mystery Gender term invented because I cannot follow the ‘correct’ male/female, he/she, transitioning/transitioned, NewSpeak in today’s news.


19 posted on 04/28/2017 7:54:54 AM PDT by Scrambler Bob (Brought to you from Turtle Island, otherwise known as 'So-Called North America')
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To: Dilbert San Diego

RE: so now, we are saying that we have a constitutional right, to have the so called sex change operation????

Once the courts decided that people of the same sex can marry and another court decides that businesses MUST provide service to gay weddings whether they object or not, then all bets are off.


20 posted on 04/28/2017 7:56:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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