The leftist Marxists in the country have proven time and time again that they care little about those they wish to govern. A more accurate depiction is that they want to have power over their constituents, and if necessary, take away their religious freedom by forcibly enacting laws contrary to all decency and morality.
The same thing is happening in the very blue state of New York. It is a battle against a religious order of nuns who run a free hospice for indigent people who are dying of cancer. They have been serving the downtrodden for 125 years. New York is actively trying to shut the legitimate hospice down because they refuse to bend the knee to the radical ideology of the transgender movement.
The problem for the nuns started when Rosary Hill Hospice, run by the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, was threatened with fines, license revocation, and even jail for refusing to comply with housing biological men with their female patients. New York’s threatening letters stated that they would also be liable for failing to use preferred pronouns or allowing males to use the female restrooms.
The New York law, “Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights for LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers and People Living with HIV,” was passed in 2023 with no real opposition. It passed with little notice from onlookers who did not recognize or fear the significance of this law to religious freedom.
The law reads as follows: “It shall be unlawful for a long-term facility or facility staff to discriminate against any resident on the basis of such resident’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or expression.” Further, it is unlawful “to assign a room to a transgender resident other than in accordance with the transgender resident’s gender identity, unless at the transgender resident’s request.”
Mother Superior, Marie Edward, made it clear where the Sisters stand on this issue. “I think the most important thing is that we are adamant in keeping our Catholic identity. Without that, there’s no purpose for us to do what we’re doing.” The Sisters filed suit claiming New York is violating their religious rights under the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne got some good news and a powerful ally. The Department of Justice issued this statement. “The Justice Department notified the U.S. District Court that it intends to intervene in a lawsuit filed by an order of Catholic nuns — the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne — against the State of New York, challenging a State law that requires housing biological men with women in the Sisters’ residential hospice care program. The United States’ supports the Sisters of Hawthorne’s argument that the New York law violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection of religious groups.”
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon has placed states like New York on notice. “States should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of woke gender ideology.”
Pray that the Sisters prevail. How objectionable it is when the power of the state, with all its might, tries to shut down a hospice doing works of charity to the dying. It tells you all you need when the state and the Marxists who run it care more about their pet project than they do about those suffering and being prepared lovingly to leave this world.
For those of that ilk, it had never been about the people, but everything about forcing their will upon everyone.