Secular devotion to gender ideology ran afoul of religious liberty in a blue state where Catholic religious sisters have filed suit to prevent fines and jail time over their faith.
Under the guise of the fictitious notion of separation of church and state, zealots of the spirit of the age have repeatedly chipped away at religious liberty to supplant Christianity with unholy alternatives. Such an instance has triggered a lawsuit in New York, as the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who’ve cared for the dying for more than 125 years, have found their facility threatened by a mandate requiring men who claim to be women to be allowed in the private spaces of women.
“We Sisters have taken care of patients from all walks of life, ideologies, and faiths. We treat each patient with dignity and Christian charity. We have never had complaints,” expressed Mother Marie Edward, O.P. (Ordo Prædicatorum), in a statement. “We cannot implement New York’s mandate without violating our Catholic faith.”
According to the lawsuit filed Tuesday against self-styled Catholic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) and other state officials, the New York State Department of Health sent a series of letters to the Rosary Hill Home located upstate beginning in March 2024. Within the letters, the NYSDOH demanded that the facility that cares for the poor and those suffering from incurable cancer affirm gender ideology with the use of false pronouns while housing men with women, among other complaints.
The suit was filed after the state’s failure to respond to the request for an exemption to the mandates on religious principles, as the sisters face penalties for failed compliance that include fines of $2,000 per violation that increase to $5,000, loss of licensing, and a potential year of incarceration with up to a $10,000 fine.
Counselor Martin Nussbaum, who represents the sisters through the First & Fourteenth law firm, remarked in part, “… this was especially disappointing because New York’s law provides religious exemption for long-term care facilities affiliated with the Christian Science Church but not for similar Catholic facilities. The Sisters were left with no choice but to file suit in federal court, and the Catholic Benefits Association has helped them do that.”
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Mother Marie Edward indicated that the care provided at the facility is free to patients without taking a cent from insurance or government funds.
Hochul had previously run afoul for pushing Catholic groups to cover abortions, and herself had become a zealous proponent of The Science™ as she argued against religious exemptions to the COVID shots.
“God did answer our prayers,” she asserted during a 2021 speech while wearing a necklace that read “vaccinated” as she called on attendees to be her “apostles” pushing the shots. “All of you, yes, I know you’re vaccinated, you’re the smart ones, but you know there’s people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants.”
NY Gov Hochul says unvaxxed aren’t listening to God, calls on vaccinated ‘apostles’ to spread the word https://t.co/2Ebetd2HzR pic.twitter.com/vdKYkFHbev
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) September 28, 2021
Two years later, she signed into law a bill touted as establishing “Long-Term Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights for LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers and People Living with HIV,” banning discrimination “on the basis of a resident’s actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or HIV status.”
The governor’s position that, “Hate will never have a place in New York,” failed to address the impact on the continued existence of the sisters’ facility, as Edward told Fox News Digital, “New York’s gender ideology mandates not only violate our Catholic values, they threaten our existence with fines, injunctions, license revocation, and even jail time. This is why we were forced to go to court to seek protection of our religious exercise and freedom of speech so that we can continue our ministry to the poor.”
The suit comes just months after the state agreed to cease efforts to force the dioceses of Albany and Ogdensburg, as well as two Catholic charities, to cover abortion in health insurance plans.
Addressing the case of the sisters, a spokesperson for the NYSDOH said, “While the Department does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation, the NYS Department of Health is committed to following state law, which provides nursing home residents certain rights protecting against discrimination, including, but not limited to, gender identity or expression.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
- Catholic nuns face jail time for not affirming false genders and pronouns of dying patients they care for - April 13, 2026
- Barron Trump’s beverage company unveils product preview - April 13, 2026
- Iran’s new regime in crisis, does not have the confidence to publicly bury Mojtaba’s dead father - April 13, 2026
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.