For 125 years, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne cared for the terminally ill poor without charging insurance companies or government programs, without a complaint filed against them, and without interference from the state of New York. That ended March 18, 2024.
The New York State Department of Health sent the first in a series of letters to Rosary Hill Home, the Sisters’ 42-bed facility in Hawthorne, Westchester County. The letters spelled out what compliance with a 2023 state law now requires: assign rooms based on a patient’s gender identity even over a female roommate’s objection, permit opposite-sex restroom access, use patients’ preferred pronouns, train staff in state-mandated gender ideology, use language “creating communities” that affirm patients’ sexual preferences, and accommodate residents’ desire for extramarital sexual relations.
Noncompliance carries fines, court orders, potential loss of licensing, and jail time.
The Sisters requested an exemption. On March 5, 2026, the Catholic Benefits Association, which provides legal support to the order, submitted a formal request to the Department of Health. The state did not respond. Two weeks later, the Sisters filed suit in federal court.
The lawsuit, Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne et al. v. Hochul et al., case 7:26-cv-02809, landed in the Southern District of New York on April 6. It names Gov. Kathy Hochul and several Department of Health officials as defendants. The Sisters seek declaratory and injunctive relief on First and Fourteenth Amendment grounds — compelled speech and unequal treatment under the law.
The unequal treatment claim has a specific target. The law, S1783A, contains a religious exemption — but only for facilities affiliated with the Christian Science Church. Catholic institutions are excluded. Martin Nussbaum of the First & Fourteenth law firm, counsel for the Sisters, called the omission “especially disappointing” and said the Sisters were left with no choice but to sue.
The Assembly passed S1783A 144-2. The Senate passed it 55-7. Gov. Hochul signed it November 30, 2023, the eve of World AIDS Day. The Assembly floor debate ran roughly 10 minutes. Three Republicans asked questions, none hostile. Religious liberty never came up.
Rosary Hill Home has operated since 1901, founded by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop — a daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne who converted to Catholicism, opened an apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side for dying cancer patients, and established a religious congregation to continue that work. The order serves only patients with a terminal cancer diagnosis who have no one else capable of caring for them. It accepts no insurance payments and no government-subsidized health care.
The state agency website shows zero complaints against Rosary Hill Home. The Department of Health has not responded to requests for comment.
New York passed a law with a carve-out for one faith and not another, ignored a formal exemption request, and is now defending that position in federal court against an order that has operated without a blemish or a dollar of public money for 125 years.
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