A prominent doctor was stripped off his hospital privileges after ten years of battling accusations of bigotry and discrimination for refusing to support LGBTQ-related events held by the facility.
Dr. Paul Church claims that he was removed from Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center association after he disagreed with the promotion of LGBT oriented events such as Gay Pride Week and the "LGBT Achievement" awards.
"They (the hospital) chose a social agenda that they wanted to promote," Church told Fox News. The doctor went on to compare the hospital's support of gay pride with the support of cigarette smoking. The reason for Church's unwillingness to promote such events is because he sees them as unhealthy practices that help spread disease.
The doctor received an email back in 2004, after some board members called his decision discriminating. Church Militant says that Church replied by saying that the "evidence is irrefutable that behaviors common within the homosexual community are unhealthy and high risk for a host of serious medical consequences."
His email responses leaked out to the public and caused offence upon staff members of the hospital. One healthcare worker of the medical center considered Church as an "ignorant doctor" who needed to be educated in LGBT issues.
66 year-old Church has worked in the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for 28 years, serving as a urologist. He goes on to defend that medical institutions should not actively promote LGBT values. Though the ruling does expel him from the hospital, he is still allowed to practice medicine elsewhere. Church still has affiliations with two other hospitals, and still practices his profession.
The decision to remove Church came from a majority vote from the 25 members of the executive committee of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center last month. The hospital said in a statement to Fox that Church's behavior was "inconsistent with BIDMC's established standards of professional conduct."
