Senior Counsel Jennifer C. Pizer from Lambda Legal, discusses her case against the North Coast Women's Medical Care Group, at 4th District appellate court in San Diego on Tuesday. WALDO NILO Staff Photographer Order a copy of this photo Visit our Photo Gallery

SAN DIEGO ---- A lesbian's lawsuit against two North County doctors who refused to artificially inseminate her allegedly because of their religious beliefs raised several legal issues for a state appeals court Tuesday as justices questioned how to reconcile state laws that protect religious freedom and those that prohibit discrimination.

After hearing arguments from attorneys at the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego on Tuesday morning, Associate Justice Gilbert Nares told both sides that he believed the case eventually will reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Guadalupe "Lupita" Benitez of Oceanside sued the Vista-based North Coast Women's Care group and Dr. Christine Brody and Dr. Douglas Fenton in 2001 after the doctors refused to inseminate her.

Benitez alleged the doctors would not inseminate her because she is homosexual. Attorneys for the doctors say the physicians would not perform the procedure because Benitez was unmarried.

The lawsuit reached the state appeals court after a Superior Court judge ruled that the doctors could not argue as a defense at trial that they were exercising their religious liberty when they did not artificially inseminate Benitez. It marks the second time the appeals court has been asked to decide an issue in the case, which has not yet gone to trial.

A Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuit, but a state appeals court reinstated it in 2003.

The 2003 appeals court opinion stated that Benitez alleged that Brody had said she "had religious-based objections" to helping homosexuals conceive children through artificial insemination. Benitez alleged that Brody agreed to provide Benitez fertility treatments, and said another doctor would be able to perform the insemination procedure, the opinion stated.

"This case is about sexual orientation discrimination," Benitez's attorney, Jennifer Pizer, told reporters Tuesday outside the courthouse

Attorney Carlo Coppo, who represents Brody and Fenton, said Tuesday that Benitez's sexual orientation was not the basis for the doctors' decision not to artificially inseminate her.

"Our clients made the decision not to perform an (intrauterine insemination) because Ms. Benitez is an unmarried woman," Coppo told reporters Tuesday.

Today, Benitez is the mother of a 4-year-old son and recently gave birth to twin daughters, Pizer said.

Brody told Benitez at their first meeting that she would not perform an intrauterine artificial insemination on an unmarried woman ---- regardless of whether the woman was homosexual or heterosexual ---- because of the doctor's religious beliefs, but that other doctors in the medical group could do the procedure, said Carlo Coppo, an attorney for the doctors.

Coppo said Brody and Fenton are Christians but that he had not asked them if they belonged to a specific denomination.

Benitez's attorneys said, however, that the doctors never mentioned Benitez's marital status in declarations filed in the case, but did talk about her sexual orientation. The excerpts of the declarations that Pizer read aloud included the doctors' denials of the discrimination allegations.

During arguments in court, the appellate justices asked about state laws that require employers to accommodate the religious beliefs of employees, that allow pharmacists to decline to provide medications such as birth control because of religious beliefs, and that let doctors decline to perform abortions or decline to stop life support for some patients based on their religious beliefs.

The justices and attorneys also discussed the state civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Pizer argued that doctors and businesses cannot accommodate religious beliefs in a discriminatory manner. For example, a pharmacist cannot refuse to give medicine to someone based on personal characteristics, Pizer argued.

"The state has a compelling interest in eradicating invidious discrimination," Pizer argued.

Coppo argued that the religious accommodations included in the law regarding pharmacists are "exactly what's laid out in this case" and that a jury should hear all of the evidence and decide whether the doctors had a good faith religious belief that prompted their decision.

Nares and Associate Justices Richard Huffman and Terry O'Rourke have 90 days in which to issue their opinion. Either side can then appeal to the state Supreme Court. If that court hears and decides the case, its decision eventually could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Contact staff writer Scott Marshall at (760) 631-6623 or smarshall@nctimes.com.