Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s announcement on June 27 that he would retire from active service on the U.S. Supreme Court as of July 31, 2018, opening up a vacancy for President Donald J. Trump to fill with the assistance of the bare majority of Republican United States Senators, portends a serious setback for LGBT rights in the years ahead. Kennedy cast a crucial vote and wrote powerfully emotional opinions to establish the dignity of LGBT … <Read More>
lesbian and gay rights
Federal Court Blocks Implementation Mississippi HB 1523
Just minutes before Mississippi’s anti-LGBT H.B. 1523 was scheduled to go into effect on July 1, U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves filed a 60-page opinion explaining why he was granting a preliminary injunction to the plaintiffs in two cases challenging the measure, which he consolidated for this purpose under the name of Barber v. Bryant.
According to Judge Reeves, H.B. 1523 violates both the 1st Amendment’s Establishment of Religion Clause and the 14th Amendment’s … <Read More>
Judith Kaye, a champion of lesbian & gay rights, dies at 77
Retired Chief Judge Judith Kaye of the New York Court of Appeals died on January 7, 2016, at age 77. Most accounts of her passing mentioned her dissenting opinion in the case of Hernandez v. Robles, 7 N.Y.3d 338 (2006), the case in which the state’s highest court voted against the claim that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, as one of her most notable opinions, but this was merely the capstone of … <Read More>