Enforced fairness

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article about a California state Supreme Court ruling that prohibits doctors from choosing not to treat patients whose lifestyle choices (mostly being gay) conflicts with their personal religious beliefs:

The justices rejected a San Diego County fertility clinic's attempt to use its physicians' religious beliefs as a justification for their refusal to provide artificial insemination for a lesbian couple. The ruling, based on a state law prohibiting businesses from discriminating against customers because of their sexual orientation, comes three months after the court struck down California's ban on same-sex marriage... Lawyers for the clinic and two of its doctors said they were considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. One supporter of the physicians called the ruling a strike against religious freedom. "This court is allowing two lesbians to force these individuals to choose between being doctors in the state of California or being able to practice their faith," said attorney Brad Dacus of the conservative Pacific Justice Institute, which filed arguments backing the doctors.
The lawsuit has been on hold while courts decided whether the doctors could defend denying treatment to lesbians by invoking their religious beliefs.
A state appeals court ruled in the doctors' favor in 2005. But the state's high court said Monday that California's Unruh Civil Rights Act - which prohibits discrimination against business customers because of their customers' sexual orientation as well as race, sex, religion, and other categories - applies to all businesses, regardless of their religious views.
The law "furthers California's compelling interest in ensuring full and equal access to medical treatment irrespective of sexual orientation," said Justice Joyce Kennard. In language that would apply equally to abortions, Kennard said doctors who have religious objections to a particular procedure or treatment can refuse to perform it for any patient, but can't selectively reject gays and lesbians. She said they also have the option of referring a patient to someone else at the clinic who will perform the procedure, an option that wasn't available in this case.

Rico says he doesn't weep for the poor right-wing doctors who can't discriminate against their gay patients...