Michigan's Attorney General Has Catholic Healthcare In Her Sights

Emmaus Health Partners, a Catholic health provider in Michigan, is currently under “active investigation” for “two open complaints,” according to a message received from Michigan’s Department of Civil Rights.

In an email  response, departmental Communications Director Vickie Levengood wrote, “We  cannot provide any information on complaints currently under investigation,” while averring that her department has not received any other media inquiries about Emmaus Health. Also, in an email response, the office of Michigan’s attorney general affirmed that it has no pending action against the health practice. Neither agency would define what are the charges involved. 

Based in Ann Arbor MI, the Emmaus Health website declares that it “promotes the dignity of the human person by integrating medical science with the social and moral principles of the Catholic Church.” Recognizing that “ every person is made in the image and likeness of God,” the practice confirms that it is “dignity that makes us human and that people are not defined by their wealth, their position, their color, their gender, or their sexuality.”

The website states that the practice abides by the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” published by the USCCB. In over sixty directives, the bishops say there is no place for artificial contraception, for instance, or sterilization in any Catholic hospital or medical practice.

Concerns are being raised among Catholics that Michigan’s government may be responding to complaints that Emmaus Health does not conform to  Michigan law that forbids discrimination against citizens on the basis of sexuality by refusing to engage in sterilization and hormonal or surgical transformations of genitals to resemble those of an opposite sex.. An email to Emmaus went unanswered.

A federal court in Michigan handed a partial victory to state attorney general Dana Nessel (D) regarding two cases filed against her by a Catholic parish and school. Both Christian Healthcare Centers and Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in separate lawsuits challenged Michigan’s new civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Senior Counsel John Bursch of Alliance Defending Freedom - a nonprofit law firm of counsel to the parish and healthcenters said, “Christian Healthcare Centers, for example, should be free to continue its vibrant outreach to the communities it serves through its low-cost, high-quality medical care. And Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish has faithfully served Grand Rapids families for more than a century, and its school provides a rich academic and spiritual environment for hundreds of children. We hope the 6th Circuit will respect their freedoms protected by the First Amendment so that they can continue to serve their communities without being illegitimately subjected to a state law that could undermine their faith and mission.”

Sacred Heart and Christian Healthcare Center cited the First and Fourteenth Amendments, which provide freedom of religion and equal protection, respectively, and have filed an appeal of the August 22 ruling. In addition, St. Joseph Catholic Church in St. Johns and Sacred Heart Academy in Grand Rapids, Michigan, have also filed separate lawsuits, which state that Michigan's reformed 1976 Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA), which included sexual orientation as a protected law, interferes with their religious rights and internal management, including teaching and the hiring of teachers. 

Federal Judge Jane M. Beckering in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids ruled in favor of the Michigan Supreme Court’s upholding of ELCRA earlier this year will continue to stand. Religious schools  and medical practices could be prosecuted for firing or denying a job to a person whose lifestyle does not accord with the teachings of the Catholic faith. Both Nessel and Beckering asserted that the rights of religious organizations are guaranteed. 

Nessel (D) is among 20 other state attorneys general who oppose laws affirming parental rights and restricting genital mutilation and hormone treatments for minors. Referring to efforts to block legislation in Kentucky and Tennessee to restrict “gender-affirming care” for minors, Nessel stated  in a press release,  “These laws shove the state government between minor patients, their parents, and the recommendations of trusted medical specialists their families have chose to care for them. I proudly stand with my colleagues in opposing these laws that do not comport with the way we should treat our children or our LGBTQ+ community.”

Michigan is among states affirming LGBTQ agenda, having received significant backing from LGBTQ advocates and business organizations. At her January 2023 inauguration, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) got a standing ovation when she proclaimed that “bigotry is bad for business.” In March, she signed legislation that permanently outlawed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, which came in addition to a 2022 state Supreme Court decision on amending ELCRA. That ruling added sexual orientation to the Act, which already outlawed discrimination on the basis of biological sex. Whitmer thus ensured that the ruling cannot be reversed in the future,  claiming that there is  a “nationwide assault on our LGBTQ-plus community, especially our trans neighbors, family and friends.”

The Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC) opposed the legislation signed by Whitmer, asking that it include civil protections for religious organizations and Michiganders who have sincere and long-standing beliefs about traditional marriage. Known as a religious freedom restoration act, the MCC’s proposed changes included affirming the definition of “sex” to meaning “the biological difference between males and females at birth.” Americans for Civil Liberties Union rejected the proposal, labeling it a license to discriminate in the name of religion.

Medical care is widely available for “transgender” people in Michigan. For example, Michigan Health, which near Emmaus Health and  on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, offers its Comprehensive Gender Services Program to help “transgender, gender nonconforming, and non-binary adults access and obtain the highest quality gender affirming medical care.”

This includes OB/GYN services, as well as plastic surgery, endocrinology, and “gender-related surgical procedures for patients,” according to its website. “Gender confirmation surgery” available at the hospital include “male-to-female tracheal shave, breast augmentation, facial feminization, male-to-female genital sex reassignment.” C.S. Mott Children’s Hospitals, which is also on the university campus, offers “comprehensive care for transgender, non-binary, and gender diverse children and adolescents.”

According to TransgenderMichigan.org, these are but a few of the medical practices available in the state offering hormone treatments, surgery and counseling.

Nessel (54) is the founder of Fair Michigan, a nonprofit dedicated to exposing hate crimes against so-called LGBT persons. At her law firm, in advance of her election in 2019, she successfully represented plaintiffs in DeBoer v. Snyder. That case had challenged Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage, and was combined with the Obergefell v. Hodges case in which the U.S. Supreme Court recognized same-sex marriage nationally. She is civilly married to a woman, with whom she shares custody of two boys.

Assuming office as Michigan’s attorney general in 2019, Nessel investigated allegations of sexual abuse committed by Catholic clergy. More than one million paper documents and over 3 million electronic documents were seized as part of a probe in which 270 priests were alleged to be abusers in at least three dioceses. At a 2019 press conference, while accusing Catholic bishops of alleged non-cooperation with criminal investigators, Nessel encouraged victims to speak with investigators, saying, “If an investigator comes to your door and asks to speak with you, please ask to see their badge and not their rosary.”

In 2019, the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education published “Male and Female He created them’: Towards a path of dialogue on the question of Gender Theory in Education.” It noted that many educators are planning and implemented teaching which “’allegedly convey a neutral conception of the person and of life, yet in fact reflect an anthropology opposed to faith and to right reason’, in a quote from Pope Benedict XVI. Speaking to the Church’s mission of education, it quotes Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, which states that gender theory “denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family. This ideology leads to educational programmes and legislative enactments that promote a personal identity and emotional intimacy radically separated from the biological difference between male and female. Consequently, human identity becomes the choice of the individual, one which can also change over time”

And in March 2023, the USCCB Committee on Doctrine released “Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body.” While it noted that modern technology offers an “ever-increasing range of means – chemical, surgical, genetic – for intervening in the functioning of the human body, as well as for modifying its appearance,” it also offers possibilities for “interventions that are injurious to the true flourishing of the human person.”

The document notes the Church’s millennial teaching that God’s Creation is good and that God created human beings that are either male or female, and that being man or being woman “is a reality which is good and willed by God.” It quoted Pope Francis’ document Laudato Si, which affirmed: “The acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation.”

Martin Barillas is the editor of the novel Shaken Earth, available at Amazon.