Licensed To Serve

When you are a hospital that serves the public one of the things you have to do is serve the whole public, you don’t get to pick and choose.

Transgender Californian denied healthcare based on hospital’s religious views
Los Angeles Blade
By Staff reports
March 21, 2019

Aug. 30, 2017, an IV drip hooked up waiting for the general anesthetic to be administered. He was completely prepped for his life-changing hysterectomy procedure when his surgeon informed him that the hospital’s executive administrators had canceled his surgery.

The reason for the surgical cancellation is detailed in a 12-page civil lawsuit filed March 21 in Superior Court for Humboldt County, California, by Knight, a transman, against St. Joseph Hospital, located in Eureka.

In a phone call with the Los Angeles Blade Thursday, March 21, ACLU Foundation of Northern California’s Elizabeth Gill, who is representing Knight, now 29, say the hospital claimed that because Knight is transgender, the surgery conflicted with the hospital’s adherence to Catholic doctrine and beliefs.

St. Joseph Hospital is part of the Providence St. Joseph Health Network, a national, Catholic not-for-profit health system, one of the largest health systems in the country, operating 51 hospitals, with over 25,000 physicians. The network operates 18 hospitals in California.

Gill says that Knight being denied healthcare based on the hospital’s religious views—which does not recognize gender-affirming care—is a violation of California’s public accommodations laws governed by California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.

What do you think would happened if the turned away another minority or a person from a different religion? What would happen if they turned away a woman in labor because of her race or marital status?

But for some reason it is okay to turn away us.

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An interesting patterns to the increase in hate crimes…

Hate crimes have risen 226% in areas where Trump held rallies
LGBTQ Nation
By Daniel Villarreal
March 23, 2019

A recent study by scholars from the University of North Texas has shown that “counties that had hosted a 2016 Trump campaign rally saw a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes over comparable counties that did not host such a rally.”

We already knew that U.S. hate crimes have been on the rise since Trump’s election. Even though the president’s spokespeople falsely claim that he doesn’t support political violence, he continues making barely veiled threats to his political opponents.

But this is the first study to quantify how Trump’s very presence might increase animus against marginalized people (though researchers stop short of claiming causation).

You got that?

This study was done by some Yankee liberal college but by a Texas college!

When asked whether he thought he should tone down his language, Trump responded, “I think my language is very nice.”