Yes – if they already sell them to, say, everybody except Jews.

There are legal limits in religious practices, though not belief. Human Sacrifice may be a culturally and religiously mandated practice in the worship of Huitzilopochtli, but it’s still illegal to practice it.

And John – I just finished a 20-month legal fight just to get a passport. I got one, eventually, and an apology for the inconvenience that meant that others in my situation won’t get the same treatment.

I was originally offered a document good for leaving the country, but not re-entry, even though I’m a citizen. We’re used to this kind of thing, but we don’t accept it any more.

Marti’s a “she” too, not a “he”.

The point is, what business does court have determining a Church’s religious beliefs?

To Marti – if I walk into a Muslim owned grocery or a kosher shop, can I demand that they sell me pork products? Can I take them to court if they refuse?

What difference does it make if Hastings is a man, woman, or neuter?

From a moral standpoint, the bottom line is that barring a life threatening emergency, courts shouldn’t be able to force a Church to do something against it’s religious beliefs. This is elective surgery, and non-life threatening.

From a legal standpoint, it’s interesting that Marti thinks his legal statement about “all being equal” only applies to patients in a hospital, and not to the people that work there. They also have full rights to practice their religion under the law. Can a customer also enter a Muslim-owned grocery and demand that they sell pork products?

Ms Hastings, by your definition, is not male. She’s post-op.

It’s not that simple. And people like myself whose apparent sex changes naturally really bollix up the system. To have my legal sex depend upon whether the anomalous tissue removed from me 27 years ago contained fertile eggs or not shows what bizarre and surreal results such facile definitions as yours produce.

Care to define “Female” now? Unless you’re very careful, you’ll end up with people neither, or both. It’s genuinely not that simple.

Over 140 times, the Supreme Court has held, the dictionary meaning is the legal meaning of a word.

Any statutory definition of gender, that Marti cites, deviating from the dictionary definition violates dozens of Supreme Court decisions.

Here is the dictionary definition of male:

“Of or pertaining to the sex that begets or procreates young, or (in a wider sense) to the sex that produces spermatozoa,”

If a being can fertilize but cannot bear fruit, you have a male. Other definitions are self-deception, of which a court should have no part.

The index of discrimination is, if a heterosexual male demands a huge breast augmentation, would the hospital refuse? If the answer is yes, then it applies to the plaintiff, and no discrimination has taken place.

The Vatican document’s specific points include:
* An analysis of the moral licitness of “sex-change” operations. It concludes that the procedure could be morally acceptable in certain extreme cases if a medical probability exists that it will “cure” the patient’s internal turmoil.

For an extensive discussion in the comments section, together with references to numerous medical papers and canon law round the year 1080, see the California Catholic Daily.

“At paragraph [136]: ‘I agree with Ms Wallbank that in the present context the word “man” should be given its ordinary contemporary meaning. In determining that meaning, it is relevant to have regard to many things that were the subject of evidence and submissions. They include the context of the legislation, the body of case law on the meaning of “man” and similar words, the purpose of the legislation, and the current legal, social and medical environment. These matters are considered in the course of the judgment. I believe that this approach is in accordance with common sense, principles of statutory interpretation, and with all or virtually all of the authorities in which the issue of sexual identity has arisen. As Professor Gooren and a colleague put it:-

“There should be no escape for medical and legal authorities that these definitions ought to be corrected and updated when new information becomes available, particularly when our outdated definitions bring suffering to some of our fellow human beings”.’

Usually, some combination of the following is considered:

1. Body shape, esp. genitalia at birth
2. Body shape, esp. genitalia currently
3. Chromosomes
4. Endocrine system
5. Psychology
6. Social Role
7. Documentation

It’s normally clear within a jurisdiction what sex any particular person is. Usually. It would be clear in this case. It wouldn’t be in mine, alas. Not in California. I know I’m female, but proving it could be tricky. Maybe they should just ask my OB/GYN.