Overview
- The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York seeking to exempt their Rosary Hill Home from the state’s LGBTQ long-term care requirements.
- The complaint says noncompliance could bring fines, loss of licensing and possible jail, and it argues the rules compel speech and conduct that violate Catholic teaching; the sisters are suing through the Catholic Benefits Association with counsel from First & Fourteenth.
- The 2024 law, known as the LGBTQ Long-Term Care Residents’ Bill of Rights, requires staff to honor a resident’s gender identity in pronouns, room and restroom access, to allow consensual relationships, and to complete cultural competency training.
- The sisters say they asked health officials for an exemption on March 5 and never received a reply, after three state letters between March 2024 and January 2025 reminded facilities of training and compliance duties.
- The Health Department said it will enforce anti-discrimination rights, and the complaint argues a narrow exemption for Christian Science facilities amounts to unequal treatment that could shape how rules apply to other faith-based providers.