Worth Knowing, Probably Not Quite Threadworthy 6/21

[SVPete]

Justice Department Backs Catholic Nuns Against New York's Gender Ideology Law

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scott-mcclallen/2026/06/20/justice-department-backs-catholic-nuns-against-new-yorks-gender-ideology-law-n2678044

The Justice Department has notified the U.S. District Court that it intends to intervene in a lawsuit filed by an order of Catholic nuns — the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne — against the State of New York.

The lawsuit challenges a state law that requires housing biological men with women in the Sisters’ residential hospice care program.

The United States supports the Sisters of Hawthorne’s argument that the New York law violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection of religious groups.

“States should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of woke gender ideology,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “For more than a century, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne have provided free palliative care to indigent cancer patients in their last days. New York’s law would force these religious women to choose between their faith and their license if they wish to continue serving the dying.”

[SVPete]

New York Nuns Get a Temporary Win Against State's Assisted Suicide Law

https://townhall.com/news/amy-curtis/2026/08/02/new-york-exempts-nuns-from-assisted-suicide-law-n2680514

Back on July 20, Townhall reported that a group of Catholic nuns and healthcare providers in New York had filed suit against the state over its assisted suicide law, one that would force those religious groups to inform patients of "end-of-life options," including assisted suicide.

The group included the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, and the Diocese of Rockville Centre and Catholic Health, a network of Long Island hospitals. Now a court has granted them relief from the state's assisted suicide law, at least temporarily.

The ruling prohibits the state from forcing these Catholics from participating in the assisted suicide law until their lawsuit is heard in court.

This ruling enjoins enforcement of this law while the lawsuit is being litigated.