News Can We Send Flowers to California’s Supreme Court?
posted by August 18 at 12:24 PM
onDoctors in California must treat gays and lesbians the same as any other patient, regardless of religious objections, the state Supreme Court ruled today.In a unanimous decision, the court rejected a San Diego County fertility clinic’s attempt to use its physicians’ religious beliefs as a justification for their refusal to provide artificial insemination for a lesbian couple.
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Today’s ruling, three months after overturning California’s ban on same-sex marriage, strengthened the state’s law that prohibits businesses, including medical clinics, from discriminating against customers because of their sexual orientation, as well as their race, sex or religion. The court said religious beliefs do not excuse discrimination…. In today’s ruling, the court also rejected the doctors’ claim that their freedom of speech was being violated, saying they remain free to criticize the anti-discrimination law as long as they comply with it.
Comments
ooh, I like that last line. Smackdown!
What evil do these "Christians" do? Is this what they mean by "doing unto others..."? And just imagine the chaos they want to create here with their ridiculous religion.Truly disgusting. And hurrah for California Supreme Court. I wish our court had the guts and the intellect to do the same.
That is great.
Want to be a religious freak?
Then don't become a doctor.
If you can't keep your ideas in your head about religion, you have no business being a licensed practitioner.
@4:
Well said. You took the words right out of my mouth.
@2 Right on.
If only we could export this court - en banc - this is a strong and powerful decision - for all issues involving the bigoted docs ... and there are some
Go Court ... Go, and then do a teach in, in Washington for your dull wit peers
When do we hear the waves of butthurt coming from people who say this is more judicial activism?
@8 I bet that if you were on the Family Research Council's email list you would already have been sent a long, butthurt-filled message about "judicial activism".
@2:
Unfortunately, I think this is EXACTLY how many right-wing Christians WOULD want to be treated. Because that way, you'd, um, be helping them keep faith by - er, NOT giving them abortion pills, which they really just came in to ask about for, you know, a "friend".
So why can pharmacists refuse to provide the "morning-after pill," other forms of contraception, or emergency anti-HIV drugs based on their religious beliefs?
above
not in Calif - not after this ruling
Why don't people get it through their heads that the First Amendment protects religious belief, not practice? It was illegal to be a Baptist or a Quaker or Methodist or what have you in various American colonies and European states. You could be arrested for your very proclamation of belief. That's not allowed, nor is overt discrimination allowed. But time and time again, specific religious practices found to be harmful or simply in contravention of existing law have been banned and the bans upheld, from Scientology's "Fair Game" to the FLDS raping underage girls.
I'm shomer Shabbat, meaning no work on Saturdays, and that's meant that there are some jobs I just can't do, because weekend work is necessary, but that's my problem, not those employers. I get it. Why can't these assholes?
It's decisions like this--and the marriage opinion--that make me wish California were its own republic. Why should we have to be in the same country with the same federal government and federal supreme court and federal marriage bans as Mississippi and the other stupid states?
Blah blah blah, gay marriage, pit bulls, fat people, waaah - this isn't Chicago, I only own one house now so I'm level with the peeps, every child needs something or the other, oh they will know we are BIG BORING NELLIES by our...
I'm sorry, but count me in as one of those judicial activism whiners. I don't believe anyone has the right to be treated the same as anyone else. It's not like I don't sympathize with you guys: The doctors' actions were clearly bullshit, and forcing them by law to not do bullshit things is probably the quickest and most effective way to do it. If there was some kind of breach of contract they could sue for, or something in their medical oaths that requires them to treat all patients the same, that's fine. But if the whole basis is just this anti-discrimination law, sorry, I don't buy it. Did anyone see the Gays in the Boy Scouts episode of South Park? That's my position on this.
MBI @16 said: "or something in their medical oaths that requires them to treat all patients the same"
An interesting point, since the AMA's Principles of medical ethics says: "A physician shall, in the provision of appropriate patient care, except in emergencies, be free to choose whom to serve, with whom to associate, and the environment in which to provide medical care."
I'm not so sure that artificial insemination is an emergency (while on the other hand, "emergency contraception" has "emergency" right in it's name). Of course that is just the AMA, not the courts.
That's a good point, #17. Also, the Slog generally hasn't agreed with the "you should obey a law even if you disagree with it" stance in the past.
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