California High Court Rules against Doctors in Gay Discrimination Case
Recently, the California Supreme Court has done a lot to bolster gay rights. In May, the court approved same-sex marriages in California. Now, a new unanimous ruling by the Court finds that doctors cannot refuse treatment to gay patients, according to a report by the Recorder.
The ruling means that the constitutional rights to free speech and religion do not exempt doctors from complying with laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The California Supreme Court has a history of being sensitive to gay rights.
The Court has previously approved second-parent adoptions and strengthened non-biological parents' claims to parenthood in same-sex relationships. The justices have also issued rulings to prevent businesses from discriminating against registered domestic partners and have given the nod of approval to municipal policies which boycott groups that discriminate against homosexuals.
The Court's recent decision stemmed from a case that began in 2001.
Guadalupe Benitez, a lesbian from Oceanside, California, sued doctors Christine Brody and Douglas Fenton because they claimed that their Christian beliefs prevented them from providing intrauterine insemination services to Benitez.
The doctors, who worked at North Coast Women's Care Medical Group in Vista, California, said that they refused to inseminate Benitez because she was not married. However, they did provide her with infertility treatments and offered to refer her to other doctors within the practice for intrauterine insemination.
However, Benitez says that she was refused treatment by Brody and Fenton because she is gay and filed a personal injury lawsuit against the doctors for discrimination.
Benitez was not successful with her case in the San Diego Superior Court. The Court found that discrimination based on marital status is not in violation of the law. Benitez filed an appeal.
In San Diego's 4th District Court of Appeal, her luck was no different. The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court's 2006 decision that the doctors should have been able to use their religious objections as an affirmative defense.
The California Supreme Court reversed that decision and found that the doctors' actions did in fact violate the state's Unruh Civil Rights Act. This Act prohibits businesses from discriminating against anyone based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition or sexual orientation.
Simply put, the Unruh Act was meant to provide almost a blanket of protection against various types of discrimination.
The Superior Court and the Court of Appeal found that discrimination based on marital status is not covered by the Act. However, the California Supreme Court ruling seems to indicate that Benitez may have suffered discrimination due to her sexual orientation rather than her marital status.
The case will now be sent back to the Superior Court to decide.
Justice Joyce Kennard authored the Court's decision and pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court has never found that religious objections exempted anyone from following "neutral and valid" laws of general applicability.
Kennard wrote that the First Amendment guarantee of the free exercise of religion did not exempt Brody and Fenton from complying with the anti-discrimination requirements laid out in the Unruh Civil Rights Act, even if complying would be in conflict with their religious beliefs.
However, Kennard did say that the doctors could avoid future issues of this nature by simply referring patients to other doctors within the clinic if there is a religious conflict. As long as patients are not denied treatment and have equal access to the same services as everyone else, there would be no violation of the Unruh Act.
According to the doctors, Benitez was in fact offered a referral to other doctors in the office and therefore not denied medical services.
While the doctors were denied affirmative defense by the Supreme Court's ruling, the justices held that they are still free to voice their religious beliefs and objections to the Unruh Act's prohibition against sexual orientation discrimination.
At the trial, Brody and Fenton may also still deny the allegation that their refusal to treat Benitez was based on her sexual orientation. They maintain that they personally declined to artificially inseminate Benitez because she was an unmarried woman, and not because she is gay. According to the doctors, Benitez was in fact provided medical services at the facility and could have been inseminated by other doctors in the practice, if she had chosen to do so.
Lawyer Kenneth Pedroza represents Brody and Fenton in the case. He believes that there may be some First Amendment issues present in the case that could carry it to an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if the doctors are handed an unfavorable ruling in Superior Court.
