The letter noted, for instance, that many Catholic charities offer “emergency shelter for victims of domestic violence,” some of which are structured as single-sex environments.
Yet the proposed rules would “arguably mandate [the shelters] to house biological men who identify as women in single-sex facilities,” a policy that would violate the core Catholic teachings of “the immutable difference between, and dignity of, men and women.”
“Any charity that has separate men’s and women’s bathrooms or changing areas could be required to allow men to use the women’s facility and vice versa,” the letter suggested, adding further that “any charity may be required to address an employee or beneficiary by pronouns that do not correspond with his or her biological sex” in violation of Catholic beliefs.
The rule places “unconstitutional conditions on participation in government programs,” the general counsel wrote, which “threatens our capacity to carry out” Catholic charitable works.
Noting that the Catholic Church espouses a belief in “an order in the natural world that was designed by its Creator,” which includes “human bodies [that] are sexually differentiated as male or female,” the letter says that the proposed rule “reflects anthropological premises that are simply not true.”
The office noted that the policy does allow for religious conscience exemptions, but it argued that those provisions are designed in such a way as to invite “arbitrary and capricious applications of religious freedom protections.”