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(08-18) 12:53 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Doctors in California must treat gays and lesbians the same as any other patient, regardless of religious objections, the state Supreme Court ruled today.

In a unanimous decision, the court 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.

Guadalupe Benitez sued North Coast Women's care in Vista and two of its doctors, saying they told her in 2000 that because she was a lesbian their Christian beliefs prohibited them from performing intrauterine insemination for her. The doctors later claimed they would have refused the treatment for any unmarried couple.

They referred Benitez to another clinic for the insemination. She did not become pregnant then, but since has borne three children and is raising them with her partner of 18 years.

Today's ruling, three months after overturning California's ban on same-sex marriage, strengthened the state's law that prohibits businesses, including medical clinics, from discriminating against customers because of their sexual orientation, as well as their race, sex or religion. The court said religious beliefs do not excuse discrimination.

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