A federal district judge in Wichita Falls, Texas, has issued a “nationwide preliminary injunction” against the Obama Administration’s enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act to require schools to allow transgender students to use restroom facilities consistent with their gender identity. Judge Reed O’Connor’s August 22 ruling, State of Texas v. United States of America, Civ. Action No. 7:16-cv-00054-O (N.D. Texas), is directed specifically at a “Dear Colleague” letter dated May 13, 2016, … <Read More>
U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court Stays Injunction against Gloucester School District in Transgender Restroom Case
On August 3 the U.S. Supreme Court granted an application by the Gloucester (Virginia) County School Board to stay a preliminary injunction that had been issued by U.S. District Judge Robert Doumar (E.D. Va.) on June 23; see 2016 WL 3581852. Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., 136 S.Ct. 2442 (No. 16A52), granting stay. The injunction ordered the school board to allow Gavin Grimm, a transgender boy, to use the boys’ restroom facilities at … <Read More>
Federal Judge in Puerto Rico Claims Obergefell v. Hodges Does Not Apply There
In an astonishing departure from established precedents, U.S. District Judge Juan M. Perez-Gimenez of the U.S. District Court in Puerto Rico, who had dismissed a marriage equality lawsuit on October 21, 2014, has issued a new decision on March 8, 2016, Vidal v. Garcia-Padilla, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29651, asserting that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on June 26, 2015 in Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, that the 14th Amendment of the … <Read More>
Utah Files Petition for Supreme Court Review of Marriage Equality Ruling
Utah Governor Gary Herbert and Attorney General Sean Reyes filed their petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court on August 5, seeking review of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in Kitchen v. Herbert. At the Supreme Court, the case would be called Herbert v. Kitchen. The 10th Circuit ruled on June 25 that Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the 14th Amendment by depriving same-sex couples of the fundamental right to … <Read More>
Supreme Court Blocks Utah Marriages Pending 10th Circuit Decision
This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the following order:
MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 2014
ORDER IN PENDING CASE
13A687 HERBERT, GOV. OF UT, ET AL. V. KITCHEN, DEREK, ET AL.
The application for stay presented to Justice Sotomayor and
by her referred to the Court is granted. The permanent
injunction issued by the United States District Court for the
District of Utah, case No. 2:13-cv-217, on December 20, 2013, is
stayed pending final disposition of … <Read More>
Utah Plaintiffs Strongly Counter State’s Supreme Court Stay Application in Marriage Equality Case
Today the attorneys for the plaintiffs in Kitchen v. Herbert, the Utah marriage equality case, filed their opposition with the Supreme Court to the state’s application for a stay of the trial court ruling.
Under the trial court ruling, issued on Dec. 20, same-sex marriages began happening in Utah that date. On December 23, the trial judge, Robert Shelby, denied the state’s motion to stay his ruling pending appeal. Two days later, a panel of … <Read More>
Utah Applies for Stay of Marriage Equality Ruling
Late this afternoon the state of Utah petitioned the Supreme Court to stay the ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby in the marriage equality case, Kitchen v. Herbert. The Petition is addressed to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is assigned to hear such petitions emanating from the states in the 10th Circuit. Last week, a pair of 10th Circuit judges, sitting as a panel to hear such petitions, supported Judge Shelby’s decision to deny a … <Read More>
Supreme Court Holds Anti-Prostitution Pledge Required by Federal Funding Law to be Unconstitutional
Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a federal statute conditioning funding for overseas HIV-prevention work by non-governmental organizations on those organizations having a policy explicitly opposing prostitution violates the 1st Amendment. Writing for the 6-2 majority, Chief Justice John R. Roberts, Jr., quoted from the Court’s famous Flag Salute case from 1943, which stated: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe … <Read More>