The U.S. Supreme Court announced on February 24 that it will review a 2019 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, in which that court rejected 1st Amendment claims by the Catholic Social Services agency in Philadelphia that lost its foster services contract with the City by insisting it would refuse to provide services to same-sex couples. The unanimous appeals court decision affirmed a ruling by U.S. District Judge … <Read More>
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court May Decide Another Gay Wedding Cake Case
Melissa and Aaron Klein, proprietors of the now-defunct “Sweetcakes by Melissa” custom-cake business in Gresham, Oregon, filed a petition for certiorari on October 19, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the $135,000 penalty imposed by Oregon authorities for their refusal to make a wedding cake for Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman in January 2013. Klein v. Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, No. ____ , seeking review of Klein v. Oregon Bureau … <Read More>
Supreme Court Rejects Gay Death Row Inmate’s Appeal
The Supreme Court has denied a petition from South Dakota gay death row inmate Charles Russell Rhines, who challenges the fairness of his death sentence in light of evidence that some jurors were taking anti-gay stereotypes into account while determining his sentence. In line with its normal practice, the Supreme Court merely listed the case as “certiorari denied” without an explanation on June 18. Rhines v. South Dakota, 2018 WL 2102800 (No. 17-8791).
Rhines was … <Read More>
Federal Court Ruling on “Religious Exemptions” from Anti-Discrimination Laws on Same-Sex Weddings May Preview Supreme Court Decision
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>
Former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Seeks Reversal of His Old Court’s Opinion
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>
Texas Supreme Court Refuses to Dismiss Challenge to Spousal Benefits for Houston City Employees
In a clear misreading of the U.S. Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling from 2015, Obergefell v. Hodges, especially as elucidated just days ago by that Court in Pavan v. Smith, the Texas Supreme Court unanimously refused on June 30 to dismiss a lawsuit by two disgruntled Houston taxpayers who argue that the city of Houston may not provide employee benefits for the same-sex spouses of its employees. The case is Pidgeon v. Turner, 2017 Tex. … <Read More>
Supreme Court Rules that Same-Sex Spouses are Entitled to Be Listed on Birth Certificates
When a child is born to a woman married to another woman, both women should be listed as parents on the child’s birth certificate. So ruled the Supreme Court, voting 6-3 and reversing a decision by the Arkansas Supreme Court on the last day of its October 2016 Term, which was coincidentally the second anniversary of the Court’s historic marriage equality ruling, Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015), which provides the basis for … <Read More>
4th Circuit Judges Hail Gavin Grimm as a Civil Rights Leader
A pair of federal appeals court judges have saluted Gavin Grimm, a transgender high school senior, as a civil rights leader in the struggle to establish equal rights for transgender people under the law.
On April 7, the Richmond-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion by the Gloucester County (Virginia) School District to vacate a preliminary injunction issued last summer by the U.S. District Court, which had ordered the school district to … <Read More>
Houston Benefits Dispute May Bring Marriage Equality Issue Back to the Supreme Court
Conservatives eager to bring the marriage equality issue back to the U.S. Supreme Court after President Donald J. Trump has had an opportunity to appoint some conservative justices may have found a vehicle to get the issue there in an employee benefits dispute from Houston. On January 20, the Texas Supreme Court announced that it had “withdrawn” its September 2, 2016, order rejecting a petition to review a ruling by the state’s intermediate court of … <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>