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Jim Obergefell slams Supreme Court’s threat to overturn same-sex marriage rights after Roe

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Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, has slammed Justice Clarence Thomas’ footnote in today’s majority court opinion overturning abortion rights. Thomas wrote that, even though the Constitution doesn’t explicitly mention abortion rights, the Supreme Court “erroneously” decided in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision to treat abortion as a fundamental right that should be free from government interference, something known in legal terms as “substantive due process.” Thomas wrote, “We should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents. We have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents… For […]

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Clela Rorex, who issued 1st same-sex marriage licenses, dies

Clela Rorex, a former Colorado county clerk considered a pioneer in the gay rights movement for being the first public official to issue a same-sex marriage license in 1975, has died. She was 78. Rorex died Sunday of complications from recent surgery at a hospice care facility in Longmont, the Daily Camera reported. Rorex was a newly elected Boulder County clerk when a gay couple denied a marriage license elsewhere sought her help in March 1975. She told The Associated Press in 2014 that she saw a parallel with the women’s movement and found nothing in state law preventing it. […]

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Masked Proud Boys terrorize kids at library Pride event as cops gave them fist bumps

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Members of the Cape Fear Proud Boys staged a demonstration outside a local library in Wilmington, N.C., on Tuesday where a Pride-themed storytime event was being held. The 15 masked men wearing the violent far-right group’s trademark black and yellow shirts were allowed into the library during the event by New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office deputies. “I certainly felt like I was in danger when they entered the building,” Emily Jones, a parent who attended the event with her 17-month-old daughter, told Wilmington’s Star News Online. According to a statement from the sheriff’s office, a deputy positioned himself between the demonstrators and […]

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Japan court rules same-sex marriage ban is not unconstitutional

A Japanese court ruled on Monday that a ban on same-sex marriage was not unconstitutional, dealing a setback to LGBTQ rights activists in the only Group of Seven nation that does not allow people of the same gender to marry. The ruling dashes activists’ hopes of raising pressure on the central government to address the issue after a court in the city of Sapporo in March 2021 decided in favor of a claim that not allowing same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Three same-sex couples — two male, one female — had filed the case in a district court in Osaka, only […]

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Texas GOP’s new platform calls gay people ‘abnormal’ and rejects trans identities

The Texas Republican Party unveiled its official position on LGBTQ issues over the weekend, defining homosexuality as an “abnormal lifestyle choice” and also opposing “all efforts to validate transgender identity.” Thousands of Republican activists met at the party’s biennial convention in Houston on Saturday to agree to the party’s platformon a range of issues, including the rejection of the 2020 election results and a call to repeal of the 1965 Voting Right Act, which was enacted to prevent discrimination against Black voters. In a section titled “Homosexuality and gender issues,” the party suggested that LGBTQ people should not be legally protected […]

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Supreme Court’s religious school ruling signals ‘dangerous road’ for LGBTQ rights, advocates say

A Supreme Court decision allowing taxpayer dollars to help pay for tuition at schools that offer religious instruction has sparked concerns about the potential implications of the ruling on LGBTQ rights.  In a 6-3 vote, the court ruled Tuesday that Maine could not prohibit parents from using a state-funded tuition assistance program to pay for their children to attend private religious schools while permitting them to do so in private secular schools. The two schools cited in the case have a history of homophobic and transphobic policies.  The ruling in Carson v. Makin is a continuation of the conservative-majority court’s recent willingness to poke holes in […]

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National Park Service to open Stonewall visitor center dedicated to LGBTQ historyzachar

The first National Park Service visitor center focused on teaching LGBTQ history will open right next door to New York City’s historic Stonewall Inn. Pride Live, the LGBTQ advocacy group spearheading the project, announced Tuesday that the Stonewall Inn — the site of a June 1969 uprising that’s widely considered a major milestone in the modern gay rights movement — will be reunited with its neighboring building in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood to “commemorate the events of the Stonewall Rebellion in their authentic locations,” according to a news release.  How the Stonewall riots 50 years ago inspired the LGBTQ movement JUNE 28, 201901:20 The […]

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California steps into the post-Roe future

California has been preparing for this moment for months. The Golden State, along with a number of Democratic strongholds, has been working to shore up its abortion protections in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. But no other state has created such a comprehensive strategy — a legislative bill package with more than a dozen proposals, new funding to expand abortion access and a proposed November ballot measure that would enshrine the right to abortion in the state Constitution. The Supreme Court decision, on a 5-4 vote, clears the way […]

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Biden Admin Proposes Protections For LGBTQ Students

The Associated Press reports: The Biden administration proposed a dramatic overhaul of campus sexual assault rules on Thursday, acting to expand protections for LGBTQ students, bolster the rights of victims and widen colleges’ responsibilities in addressing sexual misconduct. The proposal, announced on the 50th anniversary of the Title IX women’s rights law, is intended to replace a set of controversial rules issued during the Trump administration by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The proposal is almost certain to be challenged by conservatives, and it is expected to lead to new legal battles over the rights of transgender students in schools, especially in […]

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Thomas wants the Supreme Court to overturn landmark rulings that legalized contraception, same-sex marriage

The Supreme Court must revisit and overrule past landmark decisions that legalized the right to obtain contraception, the right to same-sex intimacy and the right to same-sex marriage, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote Friday. Thomas, in a concurring opinion to the court’s precedent-breaking decision overturning Roe v. Wade and wiping out constitutional protections for abortion rights, said that he would do away with the doctrine of “substantive due process” and explicitly called on the court to overrule the watershed civil rights rulings in Griswold v. Connecticut, Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges. Griswold was a 1965 Supreme Court decision that established the right for […]

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