The California Supreme Court recently held in North Coast Women’s Care Medical Group v. Superior Court (Benitez) that a medical provider (read: doctor) has no constitutional defense, based on freedom of religion and freedom of speech, to a claim for sexual orientation discrimination under California’s Unruh Act.
The defendant doctors had refused artificial insemination services to a lesbian and said that they did so based upon their faith (the girl was unmarried and the doctors said they didn’t want to inseminate an unmarried woman). The California Supreme Court found no such exemption under the federal or state constitutions. The court found, because the Act is facially neutral and valid law of general applicability, that the incidental infringement on religious liberty could not sustain a constitutional defense to a sexual orientation claim.
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