A trial judge in Louisiana ruled on December 14 that an Executive Order by Governor John Bel Edwards, forbidding anti-LGBT discrimination in the executive branch of the state government and by state contractors, violates the Louisiana constitution and laws. 19th Judicial District Judge Todd W. Hernandez, in the Parish of East Baton Rouge, said that this Order violates the separation of powers established by the Louisiana Constitution, is outside the governor’s authority to “faithfully execute … <Read More>
Legal Issues
Federal Court Upholds Dismissal of Deputy Clerk Who Refused to Process Same-Sex Marriage License
A deputy clerk in Harrison County, Indiana, lost her Title VII challenge to her discharge on December 15, when U.S. District Judge Richard L. Young ruled that she was not privileged by her religious beliefs to refuse to process a marriage license application from a same-sex couple. Incidentally, it was Judge Young who ruled in 2014 that Indiana’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Summers v. Whitis, 2016 WL 7242483, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 173222 … <Read More>
Arkansas Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Discriminatory Birth Certificate Statutes
Although the U.S. Supreme Court issued a sweeping ruling for marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, pockets of resistance remain in the states. The latest manifestation of this phenomenon comes from Arkansas, where the state’s Supreme Court ruled on December 8 by a 4-3 vote that same-sex couples do not enjoy the same constitutional rights as opposite sex couples when it comes to listing parents on birth certificates. In Smith v. … <Read More>
Colorado Appeals Court Reverse’s Teen’s Conviction in “Fighting Words” Analysis
Reversing a ruling by Boulder County District Judge Ingrid S. Bakke, a panel of the Court of Appeals of Colorado voted 2-1 that a 14-year-old middle school student did not commit an actionable “breach of the peace” when he drew a picture of “an ejaculating penis” over the cellphone photo he took of one of his classmates and then exhibited it to the subject as well as other friends. People of the State of Colorado, … <Read More>
Mindless Bureaucracy Temporarily Foiled as District Judge Refuses to Dismiss Challenge to Gender-Binary Requirement on U.S. Passports
“Just because” is not a good enough answer when the question is whether the State Department’s Passport Office was “arbitrary or capricious” when it refused to process a passport application from an intersexual applicant who declined to check either M or F on a passport application. U.S. District Judge Richard Brooke Jackson of the District Court in Colorado rejected the government’s motion to dismiss Dana Alix Zzyym’s challenge to the gender binary requirement under the … <Read More>
Another Federal Judge Lets Gay Plaintiff Pursue Discrimination Claim under Title VII
One of the nation’s most senior federal trial judges, Warren W. Eginton (age 92) of Connecticut, rejected an employer’s motion to dismiss a Title VII sex discrimination claim brought by an openly gay employee in a November 17 ruling. Boutillier v. Hartford Public Schools, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 159093, 2016 WL 6818348 (D. Conn.). Eginton, who was appointed by Jimmy Carter in 1979 and has been a senior judge (semi-retired) since 1992, accepted the argument … <Read More>
Hawaii Supreme Court Allows Gay Dad to Seek Custody as De Facto Parent
The five members of the Hawaii Supreme Court unanimously ruled on November 3 in A.A. v. B.B., 2016 Haw. LEXIS 280, that a gay dad can seek joint custody of the kids that were adopted by his partner during their relationship and who he helped to raise. The opinion by Justice Richard W. Pollack reversed a trial judge’s ruling that a “de facto” parent had to prove that there was a compelling state interest to … <Read More>
New Court Ruling Shows What May Be Lost Due to Trump/Pence Election
A November 4 ruling in a sexual orientation discrimination case that was brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) shows that progress on LGBTS rights may be lost as a result of the election of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. The ruling in EEOC v. Scott Medical Health Center, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 153744, 2016 WL 6569233 (W.D. Pa.), was issued by U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon, who was nominated to the federal district … <Read More>
No, Donald Trump Can’t Repeal Marriage Equality
Some panicky LGBT people have been calling the LGBT legal and political organizations to ask whether they should accelerate their wedding plans to marry before Donald Trump takes office, and many are expressing concern that the marriage equality victory, won in the Supreme Court on June 26, 2015, after so much hard work and heartache, is now in danger of being reversed, and that their own same-sex marriages might become invalid.
Although nobody can … <Read More>
Supreme Court Will Hear Title IX Transgender Discrimination Case and Case Challenging Social Media Restrictions on Sex Offenders
Supreme Court Will Hear Title IX Transgender Discrimination Case and Case Challenging Social Media Restrictions on Sex Offenders
The Supreme Court substantially enlivened its docket for the October 2016 Term on October 28 when it granted petitions for certiorari in Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., No. 16-273, and Packingham v. North Carolina, No. 15-1194. In Gloucester, a school district in Virginia, obligated not to discriminate because of sex under Title IX … <Read More>