A religious order of sisters in Hawthorne that cares care for indigent people dying of cancer claims that New York is coercing them to violate biblical teachings.
The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorn and Rosary Hill Home accused Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Department of Health of violating their constitutional rights by requiring them to adhere to a LGBTQ bill of rights.
“The state of New York threatens to shut down the ministry,” according to a complaint filed on April 6 in U.S. District Court, White Plains, “unless they violate their Catholic faith.”
“While the Department of Health does not comment on pending or ongoing litigation, spokeswoman Cadence Acquaviva stated in an email on behalf of the agency and the governor, it “is committed to following state law which provides nursing home residents certain rights protecting against discrimination.”
Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, a daughter of writer Nathanial Hawthorne, founded the Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer in 1899, and the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne in 1900. She established Rosary Hill Home in 1901. Â (Hawthorne, a hamlet in Mount Pleasant, was named for her shortly after Rosary Hill Home opened.)
The Dominicans’ mission states: “We cannot cure our patients, but we can assure the dignity and value of their final days and keep them comfortable and free of pain.” The Catholic Church teaches that “all people are created in the image and likeness of God and are thus imbued with human dignity. All persons are therefore to be loved and respected in their human freedom, even if they reject the Church’s teachings on matters of sexual identity and sexual morality.”
Rosary Hill Home is a 42-bed skilled nursing home with about 20 Dominican sisters. It serves people regardless of religion or background. It charges no one and accepts no funding from families insurers or the government.
All employees and clinical contractors affirm the truth of Catholic teachings, the complaint states, and pledge to conduct themselves accordingly.
God created human being as male or female, the Dominicans believe. “Denying the givenness of male and female, and the family based upon this reciprocal relationship of opposite sexes, thus obscures a central image of God and the command of love at the heart of Christianity.”
Transgender medicine, for instance, can change surface appearances “but never sex,” according to the Dominicans.
In 2023, the state legislature enacted the LGBTQ Long-Term Care Facility Residents Bill of Rights, and Gov. Hochul signed the law. It is designed to protect nursing home residents against discrimination based on gender identity or expression.
Rosary Hill Home assigns patients to rooms on the basis of their biological sex, according to the complaint, and bathrooms are segregated by sex.
The law governs how rooms and bathrooms must be assigned for transgender patients. Staff must use the patients’ preferred names and pronouns. Residents must be allowed to choose their clothing, accessories and cosmetics, and they have the right to consensual intimacy or sexual relations.
The law exempts nursing homes operated by religious organizations whose teachings rely on prayer for healing, according to the complaint, and thus shields the Church of Christ, Scientist.
“The mandate provides no exemption for Catholic facilities.”
In 2024 and 2025, the state Health Department notified Rosary Hill Home of its obligations under the LGBTQ Long-Term Care Facility Residents Bill of Rights.
If the nursing home or staff do not comply with the law, according to the complaint, they could be fined, lose their licenses, or imprisoned for up to a year.
“They have not complied and do not intend to comply,” the complaint states.
On March 5, the Dominicans asked the state for an exemption. As of April 6 they had received no response.
The Dominicans accuse the state of violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, regarding free exercise of religion, autonomy from governmental interference, preference given to one religious group over another, religious discrimination, free speech, and expressive association.
New York is demanding “that the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne abandon their religious beliefs or abandon their 125-year mission of mercy to the dying poor,” according to the complaint. “The Constitution permits neither.”
