From Newsgroup: talk.politics.misc

On 3/9/2026 8:31 AM, Bradley K. Sherman wrote:

The U.S. is concerned

that they might have to burn NYC to the ground themselves. Waiting for
God to do it is taking longer than expected.

For 125 years, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have provided free
care to patients with terminal cancer in upstate New York. But now,
thanks to a new law which enjoyed a shameful amount of bipartisan
support, the sisters could be facing jail time for refusing to “affirm” patients who believe they are transgender – despite the fact that doing
so would violate core Catholic teachings.

The assault on the sisters’ First Amendment rights began back in 2023
when Empire State Democrats introduced something called the “Long-Term
Care Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights for LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers and
People Living with HIV.” Governor Kathy Hochul signed the bill into law,
and it went into effect in May 2024.

Although Democrat legislators spearheaded the bill, New York Republicans barely raised any opposition to it, and dozens of GOP members
appallingly voted for it. The final tally was 144-2 in favor in the
Assembly and 55-7 in favor in the Senate. It received hardly any media coverage at the time.

Supporters of the law claim that it prohibits “discrimination” against individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ in nursing homes and adult care
facilities. In reality, it criminalizes dissent against transgender
ideology, trampling the religious liberty and free speech rights of
Christians and other religious New Yorkers.

Under one provision of the law, workers are now required to use a new
57-page curriculum as a guide for how to treat patients. According to
The New York Post, the curriculum instructs caretakers “to not make assumptions about a patient’s identity: ‘Ask open-ended questions to
help you better understand how they self-identify.’” Another section reportedly “stresses the importance of pronouns and how they help to ‘affirm’ identities” and even urges workers “to share their pronouns.”

Violations can result in fines, loss of licensing and, ultimately, jail
time. Even for the first violation – which could be for something as
basic as not allowing a male to share a bathroom with a female – fines
start at $2,000.

Now, the New York state government appears to be setting out to make an example of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who operate the 42-bed
Rosary Hill Home.

According to the National Catholic Register, state officials have sent
the sisters three letters which included warnings about “refusing to
assign a room to a resident other than in accordance with the resident’s gender identity”; “prohibiting a resident from using a restroom
available to other persons of the same gender identity”; and “willfully and repeatedly failing to use a resident’s preferred name or pronouns
after being clearly informed of the preferred name or pronouns.”

The New York Department of Health also says nursing homes must
“accommodate patients’ desire for extramarital relations” – another blatant violation of Catholic belief.

In response, the sisters filed a lawsuit against the state earlier this
month. The suit alleges that New York is violating the sisters’ First Amendment rights by requiring them to allow “patients to use whatever restroom they prefer, even if their roommates object,” and mandating
that staff “always refer to patients using their preferred pronouns,
even if the patient is not present,” according to National Review. Caretakers are additionally required to undergo so-called “cultural competency training,” which is another form of DEI.

Notably, the threats from the state against the nuns at Rosary Hill come despite a perfect track record; the Department of Health has “issued
zero citations,” against the nursing home in the past five years,
according to the lawsuit.

“This is in contrast to a typical nursing home,” attorneys for the
sisters argued. “Over the same time period, New York has received more
than 55,000 complaints against other nursing homes and has issued an
average of 23 citations to each nursing home in the state.”

The nuns accept no government funding and do not charge for their
services – a heroic act of generosity considering nursing home costs run around $300 per day per patient and are often much higher when caring
for the sickest patients.

“We Sisters have taken care of patients from all walks of life,
ideologies, and faiths,” Mother Marie, general superior of the Hawthorne Dominicans, explained. “We treat each patient with dignity and Christian charity. We have never had complaints.” However, she added, “We cannot implement New York’s mandate without violating our Catholic faith.”

https://amac.us/newsline/politics/new-york-threatens-to-throw-catholic-nuns-in-jail-for-not-affirming-transgender-ideology/
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