Christian medical group sues to block enforcement of ruling barring LGBTQ discrimination

Christian Healthcare Centers Inc., which has primary care offices in Grand Rapids and Newaygo, filed a federal lawsuit against state officials in Grand Rapids. The nonprofit, which the suit describes as a faith-based medical ministry that offers health care cost-sharing services, seeks a preliminary injunction to block the enforcement of laws that keep it from following various internal policies.

Those include hiring only employees who adhere to religious beliefs and declining to use gender identity-based pronouns to refer to transgender patients or to facilitate gender transition treatments.

Michigan now "makes it illegal to merely adopt and hold policies like Christian Healthcare's," wrote attorney John Bursch, who is working with the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. "All this puts tremendous pressure on Christian Healthcare to choose between its faith and operating its medical clinic."

Employers and places that violate the state's civil rights and public accommodations laws can be ordered to stop, to provide the service at issue, to reinstate or hire an employee, and to pay damages and civil fines, according to the complaint. Public accommodations that violate a "publication clause," which Christian Healthcare says has kept it from posting its pronoun and gender transition policies online, can be imprisoned, the suit says.

"These penalties threaten Christian Healthcare's rights and chill its speech," Bursch wrote.

In July, the high court ruled 5-2 that the word "sex" in the civil rights law applies to sexual orientation and not just gender. It was a victory for LGBTQ residents after Republicans who control the Legislature long rejected bills to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.

A Court of Claims judge's earlier determination that the law applies to gender identity-based discrimination was not appealed.