The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it is siding with a Catholic skilled nursing facility against a State of New York housing mandate.
The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne sued the State of New York after receiving three Department of Health enforcement letters warning them of fines, loss of license, or a shutdown in their 54-bed facility if they did not comply.
By intervening, the DOJ becomes a party to the case and will argue alongside the nuns.
Dhillon, who immigrated to the United States from India as a child, was raised in the Sikh faith.
Sikhism is similar to Christianity in that its followers believe in one God.
Located in Westchester County, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne operate Rosary Hill Home, which provides free palliative care to indigent cancer patients in their last days.
The patients are assigned to single-sex rooms based on their biological gender, where they are referred to by pronouns reflecting their birth gender, and receive personal acts of care such as grooming, changes of clothing, and flower arrangements in their rooms.
According to the DOJ, Catholicism teaches that biological sex is God-given and cannot be morally changed, and that identifying a person by another sex is religiously prohibited lying.
Under the law, no accommodation is provided based on a religious judgment that an opposite sex room assignment could cause spiritual harm but it does allow facilities to refuse opposite-sex room assignment based on a secular clinical judgment that it could cause psychological harm to a roommate.
“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 said.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, specifically within the White Plains Division.
The litigation is being handled by the Civil Rights Division’s Disability Rights Section, which enforces federal laws that protect long-term care patients.