California court says no religious exemption for doctors

Paul Elias
Associated Press Writer
8/18/2008

SAN FRANCISCO - California's high court on Monday barred doctors from withholding medical care to homosexual men and women based on religious beliefs, ruling that state law prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination extends to the medical profession. The ruling was unanimous, a contrast to the state Supreme Court's 4-3 schism in May legalizing homosexual "marriage."

Justice Joyce Kennard wrote in the ruling that two Christian fertility doctors who refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian have neither a free-speech right nor a religious exemption from the state's law, which "imposes on business establishments certain antidiscrimination obligations." the rest