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The Department of Justice has moved to support a group of Catholic nuns challenging a New York law that requires nursing homes and long-term care facilities to accommodate residents based on gender identity, including housing assignments, restroom access and preferred pronoun usage.
The lawsuit was filed by the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, which has operated Rosary Hill Home, a free nursing facility for terminally ill cancer patients, for more than 120 years. The sisters argue that New York’s requirements conflict with their religious beliefs and could force them to choose between their ministry and their faith.
The Justice Department announced Thursday that it intends to intervene in the case, with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon saying states cannot compel Americans to abandon their religious convictions in the name of gender ideology.
“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 Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
“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,” she added.
At issue is New York’s 2023 LGBTQ Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights, which took effect in 2024. The law requires long-term care facilities to allow residents to use bathrooms and be housed according to their gender identity, to use preferred pronouns and to have nondiscrimination policies and cultural competency training related to gender identity and sexual orientation.
The sisters contend the law conflicts with their longstanding practices of assigning rooms according to biological sex, maintaining sex-specific facilities, and using pronouns consistent with biological sex. They also argue that New York has granted religious exemptions to some organizations while denying similar accommodations to Catholic ministries.
According to the lawsuit, violations could expose the facility to civil penalties, possible loss of its operating license, and, in some circumstances, criminal penalties.
The lawsuit further argues that the mandate violates protections for religious liberty, free speech, and expressive association under the Constitution. The sisters say they sought a religious exemption from the state earlier this year but have not received a response.