Religious Exemptions

"Two cases brought by Lambda Legal illustrate that discrimination continues to frustrate and humiliate gay men and women seeking equal treatment in fertility services. Guadalupe Benitez was denied infertility treatment by a clinic in California because she is a lesbian; the California Supreme Court ruled that the doctors’ actions were illegal under the state’s antidiscrimination law. In Florida, Dennis Barros and his partner planned to have a child through a surrogate mother, but the clinic they enlisted refused to provide services. It used the discriminatory F.D.A.

(Chicago, IL, August 16, 2011) - Today Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of several child welfare organizations including the Evan B. Donaldson Institute, the National Association of Social Workers and its Illinois chapter in a case brought by four Dioceses of Catholic Charities against the state of Illinois. These Dioceses seek to force the state to fund their foster care services even though they refuse to follow state law by licensing couples in civil unions as foster parents, claiming they are exempt from state nondiscrimination requirements on religious grounds.

In response to the court's swift decision in Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Springfield-in-Illinois et al. v. Illinois et al, Lambda Legal's Marriage Project Director Camilla Taylor issued the following statement:

(San Diego, September 29, 2009)--An Oceanside lesbian whose doctors denied her infertility treatment based on her sexual orientation has reached a settlement with her former physicians in her historic lawsuit against them.