{"id":272507,"date":"2026-06-20T07:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T07:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/272507\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T07:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T07:54:16","slug":"justice-department-joins-catholic-nuns-lawsuit-against-new-yorks-housing-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/272507\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Department joins Catholic nuns\u2019 lawsuit against New York\u2019s housing rule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text-[18px] md:text-[20px] first-of-type:mt-5 mt-[16px] lg:mt-[28px] leading-[28px] md:leading-8 normal \">The Department of Justice (DOJ) joined in a lawsuit filed by Catholic nuns against a New York law that forces nursing facilities to require that women\u2019s units accommodate transgender women, who are biologically male.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-[18px] md:text-[20px] first-of-type:mt-5 mt-[16px] lg:mt-[28px] leading-[28px] md:leading-8 normal \">The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who have cared for terminal cancer patients at no charge for 125 years, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ewtnnews.com\/world\/us\/dominican-sisters-challenge-new-york-gender-identity-law-in-court\" class=\"text-red-500 hover-underline-animation-red\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sued the state<\/a> after the New York Department of Health sent them three warnings about not following the transgender policies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-[18px] md:text-[20px] first-of-type:mt-5 mt-[16px] lg:mt-[28px] leading-[28px] md:leading-8 normal \">One letter warns about \u201crefusing to assign a room to a resident other than in accordance with the resident\u2019s gender identity,\u201d \u201cprohibiting a resident from using a restroom available to other persons of the same gender identity,\u201d and \u201cwillfully and repeatedly failing to use a resident\u2019s preferred name or pronouns after being clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-[18px] md:text-[20px] first-of-type:mt-5 mt-[16px] lg:mt-[28px] leading-[28px] md:leading-8 normal \">On June 18, the DOJ notified the U.S. District Court of its intent to intervene on behalf of the sisters, asserting that New York\u2019s law violates their constitutional right to equal protection as a religious group.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-[18px] md:text-[20px] first-of-type:mt-5 mt-[16px] lg:mt-[28px] leading-[28px] md:leading-8 normal \">\u201cStates should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of woke gender ideology,\u201d Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ Civil Rights Division <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/justice-department-sues-state-new-york-requiring-catholic-nursing-facilities-house-men-women\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"text-red-500 hover-underline-animation-red\">said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-[18px] md:text-[20px] first-of-type:mt-5 mt-[16px] lg:mt-[28px] leading-[28px] md:leading-8 normal \">\u201cFor more than a century, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have provided free palliative care to indigent cancer patients in their last days,\u201d she said. \u201cNew York\u2019s law would force these religious women to choose between their faith and their license if they wish to continue serving the dying.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-[18px] md:text-[20px] first-of-type:mt-5 mt-[16px] lg:mt-[28px] leading-[28px] md:leading-8 normal \">The sisters argue that the state is violating their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. They also argue their First Amendment rights are being violated because the state is trying to force them to communicate a point of view with which they disagree.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-[18px] md:text-[20px] first-of-type:mt-5 mt-[16px] lg:mt-[28px] leading-[28px] md:leading-8 normal \">The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne operate Rosary Hill Home, a 42-bed nursing home in Thornwood, New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department of Justice (DOJ) joined in a lawsuit filed by Catholic nuns against a New York law&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3734,5294,26690,76070,105013,9,11,10,105012],"class_list":["post-272507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-catholic-news","tag-gender","tag-gender-identity","tag-gender-ideology","tag-gender-theory","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-transgender-policies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}