An anti-LGBT conservative legal group is claiming that religious care homes in California will be forced to operate homosexual brothels for elderly pensioners if discrimination protections are put in place.

The surreal claim comes from the so-called Pacific Justice Institute, which is lobbying against a California bill to protect LGBT care home residents.

The Democrat-backed LGBT Care Home Residents Bill, would include explicit discrimination protections for elderly residents “on the basis of a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or HIV status”.

The law, which extends existing anti-discrimination protections, is intended to protect vulnerable elderly people who identify as LGBT encountering institutional homophobia.

But the Pacific Justice Institute claims it would lead to the “nuns caring for the elderly and disabled” being forced to run “bordellos” from their Catholic care homes.

In a letter to the bill’s authors they claimed: “For religiously conservative facilities… this [brings] issues related to sexual intimacy and biology.

“SB219 prevents a facility from restricting a resident’s ‘right to sexual intimacy’ which includes receiving visitors.

“Conservative religious institutions typically hold the view that sexual relations are confined to a man and a woman who are married to each other.

“Is it the Author’s position that a Catholic facility should enable residents to have sexual relations with whomever they please? Such an arrangement would resemble a bordello more than a religious healthcare facility.”

The letter continues to claim that forcing care workers to respect the identity and chosen names of transgender people constitutes “compelled speech” that “violates freedom of speech”.

It insists that residents who identify as transgender “may have delusions that should not be imposed on caregivers”.

California has some of the most progressive LGBT legislation in the United States.

The Governor of California recently signed a law introducing education about HIV-preventing PrEP drugs into the standard routine for those undergoing HIV tests.

The law ensures high-risk HIV-negative individuals receive information about methods that reduce the risk of contracting HIV, including PrEP and PEP, during HIV post-test counselling.