A clash between a doctor who protested his employer’s enthusiastic support of the homosexual lifestyle and the Boston hospital that regularly encourages its staff to attend LGBT events has ended in the doctor’s dismissal.
Urologist Dr. Paul Church, 66, a well-respected member of the Boston medical community, had privileges at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital for almost 30 years. He is a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty, and has done research on diagnosing prostate and bladder cancer.
He was fired by the hospital in June and lost his final appeal just a few weeks ago.
“The LGBT community’s rights obviously trump the rights of someone with a biblical worldview, or one who has important medical information to share,” Church told LifeZette in an interview. “I did nothing wrong in defending my faith worldview. But the hospital is so invested in a progressive social agenda – regardless of the facts about the medical risks of certain sexual behavior and my rights as a person of faith – that anyone who goes against them is a heretic. Very bizarre.”
Church added, “Medically, the risks of the homosexual lifestyle include anal cancer, a higher risk of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, HIV, parasitic infections and psychiatric disorders. I am not doing my job as a medical doctor if these irrefutable facts are hidden from patients in order to promote a social agenda.”
LifeZette contacted Deaconess Israel Hospital for comment but did not hear back.
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According to the CDC, gay, bisexual and other men who have had sex with men develop higher rates of STDss and HIV. These men are 40 times more likely to be HIV-positive than are heterosexual men.
“Those are facts from the CDC, not my opinion,” Church told LifeZette.
About 10 years Dr. Church became concerned about the hospital’s aggressive promotion of Boston’s Gay Pride Week and events centered around the LGBT community.
“Would you advise patients and staff to go to a rally that promoted cigarettes?” he asked. “No. And my assertion is that the risks of the LGBT lifestyle are not to be ignored, never mind aggressively promoted, by a medical hospital.”
“One issue I find troubling is that the LGBT community is an ‘officially endorsed group’ of the hospital, and as such has access to promote announcements and news stories through the hospital’s internal staff web portal,” Church noted. “They have never answered what other ‘officially endorsed groups’ they honor -perhaps because there are none. We know it’s not Christians, or people of faith.”
Dr. Church asked to be removed from the emails promoting LGBT and gay pride events, which included a video aggressively pushed throughout the hospital’s internal email blasts called “Making It Better.” In email replies to the hospital, he cited irrefutable medical evidence about high-risk behaviors in the LGBT community, and told them he understood the hospital’s mission to be one of promoting healthy lifestyles and looking out for their patients’ medical welfare.
“I also asserted that the hospital staff represents many different worldviews and religious beliefs, and many of the staff believe that homosexuality is immoral. I requested to be left off the email list.”
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Dr. Church was denied his request. He was accused by the hospital of having biases against the LGBT community, he said, in spite of treating many from the LGBT community with compassionate care.
Church has received support from LGBT patients he has treated. He told LifeZette about one former gay patient who wrote him, saying he felt embarrassed about the doctor’s treatment by the hospital and felt he was treated very competently and compassionately for his medical problems.
In September 2014, a special “investigating committee” was assembled to investigate Dr. Church’s case, according to Mass Resistance’s coverage on its website, and charges were brought against him.
Related: Death by Political Correctness
In January, the committee moved its findings to the hospital’s highest body, the 25-member executive committee, who met to determine Dr. Church’s fate. In March, the physician was informed that his “unsolicited views about homosexuality that were offensive to the BIDMC staff” were cause for his termination, and in December 2015 he lost his final legal appeal. His rights to practice at two other area hospitals may be in jeopardy as well.
“Because this is a staff credentialing mater, we do not plan to comment further,” said BIDMC in a statement to Fox News.
“It was inconvenient and dangerous to have me around,” said Church. “The executive committee voted in secret, so I don’t know what the vote was or who voted for or against me. It’s been disappointing that colleagues, some whom I considered to be friends, kind of threw me under the bus.”
Church believes all patients regardless of sexual orientation deserve compassionate, professional treatment, which includes information about the risks of their lifestyle.
“I want the best for my patients, and information they need constitutes the best,” he said. “I am not judging. I am trying to provide the very best care possible.”
“The case of Dr. Church should be a wake-up call to all Americans,” Sean Ryan, director of communications for the conservative action group MassResistance, told LifeZette. “When political correctness is prioritized over public health, something is terribly wrong.”
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