A state appellate court struck down a key provision of the LGBTQ Senior Bill of Rights, which requires long-term care staff to refer to facility residents by their preferred names and pronouns, as unconstitutional under the First Amendment.
In the case of Taking Offense v. California, a three-judge panel of the 3rd District California Court of Appeal in Sacramento came to a unanimous decision that the provision violated the rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion.
The petitioner, Taking Offense, is described only as “an unincorporated association which includes at least one California citizen and taxpayer who has paid taxes to the state within the last year.” Taking Offense asserted what is known as a facial challenge to the LGBTQ Senior Bill of Rights, which was authored by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) in 2017.
A facial challenge does not require the law to have been applied or enforced against a petitioner; rather it is sought to prevent a law that is prima facie unconstitutional from being enforced.
“We agree with Taking Offense that … the pronoun provision, is a content-based restriction of speech that does not survive strict scrutiny,” Justice Elena J. Duarte stated in the ruling. “A person’s right to speak freely prohibits the government from compelling adoption of a government message and protects the right of citizens to refrain from speaking.”
Wiener blasted the court’s decision in a July 19 statement. “The court’s decision is disconnected from the reality facing transgender people,” Wiener stated. “Deliberately misgendering a transgender person isn’t just a matter of opinion, and it’s not simply ‘disrespectful, discourteous, or insulting.’ Rather, it’s straight-up harassment. And, it erases an individual’s fundamental humanity, particularly one as vulnerable as a trans senior in a nursing home. This misguided decision cannot be allowed to stand.”
The law is intended to protect LGBTQ seniors from being discriminated against in long-term care facilities throughout the state. Modeled after a similar policy that San Francisco officials adopted several years earlier, it requires employees at such facilities to allow same-sex couples to live together and, until the appellate court decision, to use the preferred names and pronouns of transgender residents.
The court did uphold a part of the law that held it is not unlawful for transgender residents to be assigned rooms in accordance with their gender identity, unless they request otherwise, when room assignments are based on gender.
Taking Offense argued this was unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The court disagreed.
“Taking Offense fails to show that the right afforded to transgender residents by the room assignment provision — the right to a room assignment in accordance with the resident’s gender identity — is any different from the right afforded to non-transgender residents,” Duarte stated. “Accordingly, we conclude Taking Offense has failed to establish that the room assignment provision violates equal protection.”
In a concurring opinion, Justice Ronald B. Robie stated that the goal of the LGBTQ Senior Bill of Rights was laudable but that it “went too far.” He suggested the Legislature try again.
The above comes from a July 20 story by Bay Area Reporter.
on preferred pronouns
the weiner thought he would win
but that dog got cooked
Maybe I’m old, but I remember when liberals advocated for free speech. Remember those pleas for tolerance. Now there is no tolerance for anyone who disagrees with their ideologies. Remember when liberals complained about banning books? Today they ban Dr. Seuss. Liberalism is a mental illness. These people need our pity and our prayers.
It is time some people start facing realty. If a person has all the “apparatus” of a man he IS a man, and if she has all the “apparatus” of a woman, she IS a woman no matter how much a person has cut off or pretends otherwise, and decent, honest people are NOT going to lie along with you.
Anne TE,
I would go a little further than you. Rather, if a person has XY chromosomes, they’re a male. If a person has XX chromosomes, they’re a female. The “apparatus” naturally follows from these scenarios.
Not always.
In rare cases some have mixed up chromosomes, but any corrective surgery should be done when the patient is old enough to understand the best sort of treatment and the consequences; otherwise the patient will blame the parents and/or the doctors if things go wrong.
Bruce Jenner sired at least one child, he IS a man, but one who has had himself mutilated to a certain extent trying to be what he is not.
Another thing people need to stop having sexual relation with close relatives since it is causing many horrible deformities.
Anonymous and Anne TE,
What I said still stands, though. The reason is that if a person is born with a defective set of XX/XY chromosomes, then they’re in a rare category (neither true male nor true female) where they would make the best judgment based on what has happened. Regardless, XX is still female and XY is still male.
An anorexic thinks she’s fat and stops eating. It’s not a diet issue — it’s a mental issue.
Yes and it is a very very painful mental and emotional issue.
Anonymous,
True. I’ve known an anorexic. It’s freaky how the illness has so much control over their lives, even to point of death.
With that said, I began to fast periodically several years ago. I must say that one does start to feel like God when you can be fully functional yet go a full day without food.
If Bruce Jenner wants to change his name to Catelyn, that is his business, and I would honor his desire and call him Catelyn.. But if he wants me to call him a woman, I would decline. He stands biologically a man, period. There are larger issues here,. We stand or fall on our obedience to/rejection of the Moral/Natural Law. See Humanae Vitae.
see the bible
Yes, the wisdom of the Bible, which some consider old and outdated, is mindboggling. Many cultures, including European ones, did not even know about antiseptics until about the 1800’s, yet priests in the Old Testament were using hyssop, which is an antiseptic. We always think we are so much smarter than the last generation, but we seldom are.
Dear Anonymous, the Moral/Natural Law is based on the Bible, esp. psalm 139, and basically states that the created order underpins the moral order, or, moral direction is given by careful appreciation and docility to the created order.
Dan,
I have to disagree. Natural Law is not based on the bible. Natural Law is an ethical system that falls within the field of philosophy. Consequently, the concept of God is included in the ethical system but, as with all philosophy, without dogmatic modifiers.
Instead of saying that the Natural Law is based on the Bible, it would be more appropriate to say that the Bible supports Natural Law theory.
Dan,
I forgot to mention: Natural Law theory is based on reason and logic on what we see in the world and can determine about it.