Chief Judge John R. Tunheim of the U.S. District Court in Minnesota ruled in Telescope Media Group v. Lindsey, 2017 WL 4179899, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 153014 (D. Minn., Sept. 20, 2017), that for-profit businesses do not enjoy a constitutional right to refuse to provide their services for same-sex weddings on the same basis that they provide services for different-sex weddings. Turning back a case brought by the anti-gay religious litigation organization, Alliance Defending … <Read More>
On June 30, the Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling claiming that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell marriage equality decision from June 2015 did not necessarily require state and local governments to treat same-sex and different-sex marriages the same for government employee benefits purposes. On September 15, asserting that his old court’s decision was clearly wrong, retired Texas Supreme Court Justice Wallace B. Jefferson and lawyers from his Austin firm, Alexander Dubose Jefferson & Townsend … <Read More>
Resolving a difference of views between two panels of the state’s intermediate Court of Appeals, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled on September 19 that state statutes providing that the husband of a woman who gives birth to a child after undergoing donor insemination with the husband’s consent is a legal parent of the child must extend equally to the wife of a woman who gives birth to a child after undergoing anonymous donor insemination with … <Read More>
On August 2, the Richmond-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals announced that instead of holding oral argument in Gavin Grimm’s lawsuit challenging the Gloucester County School Board’s bathroom access policy, it was sending the case back to the district court for a determination whether Grimm’s recent graduation from high school made the appeal moot. Did Grimm still have standing to seek the injunctive relief that he sought? Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, … <Read More>
After rendering a bench ruling in mid-August in anticipation of the approaching resumption of school for the fall semester, U.S. District Judge Edward G. Smith released a lengthy opinion (running over 75 pages in LEXIS) on August 25, explaining why he was denying a preliminary injunction motion by plaintiffs in Doe v. Boyertown Area School District, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137317, 2017 WL 3675418 (E.D. Pa.), in which the plaintiffs, cisgender students and their … <Read More>
On July 26, to the surprise of Defense Department officials and members of the White House staff, Donald Trump transmitted a series of three tweets beginning at 8:55 a.m. announcing a new policy concerning military service by transgender individuals. “After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow…… ….Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be … <Read More>
The Richmond-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has revived a federal hate crime prosecution against a man who physically assaulted a gay co-worker without provocation at an Amazon Fulfillment Center in Chester, Virginia. U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney, Jr., had dismissed the case, accepting defendant James William Hill, III’s argument that prosecuting him would violate Congress’s constitutional authority to enact legislation under the Commerce Clause, because his conduct was not motivated … <Read More>
The New York Appellate Division court in Brooklyn has unanimously reversed a trial judge’s decision to take away a formerly-Hasidic lesbian mother’s custody of her three children, finding, among other things, that the settlement agreement drafted by her ex-husband’s father at the time of their divorce imposed an unconstitutional requirement that she continue to observe the tenets of a Hasidic lifestyle as a condition of her custody of their children. The August 16 decision, issued … <Read More>
On August 2, the Richmond-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals announced that instead of holding oral argument in Gavin Grimm’s lawsuit challenging the Gloucester County School Board’s bathroom access policy, it was sending the case back to the district court for a determination whether Grimm’s recent graduation from high school made the case moot. Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 14158. The three-judge panel had tentatively scheduled an oral … <Read More>
Finding that enforcing a statutory publication requirement for a transgender name change would result in a dangerous “outing” of the applicants, a three-judge panel of the Indiana Court of Appeals unanimously reversed two rulings by the Tippecanoe Circuit Court on August 10 in In re Name Changes of A.L. and L.S., 2017 Ind. App. LEXIS 340, 2017 WL 3429074, holding that the publication requirement should be waived such cases. The court also ruled that … <Read More>