Tag: Supreme Court

An anti-LGBTQ clerk is urging Tennessee clerks to disregard the Supreme Court ruling for marriage equality. Clerks in Tennessee have been operating under the assumption — one widely held by just about every legal authority — that they’re bound by the U.S. Supreme Court to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but one anti-LGBTQ lawyer

In a bid to make homosexuality legal in their homeland of Mauritius, four young activists have approached the nation’s Supreme Court and challenge the current laws constitutional standing. Currently in Mauritius – while prosecution is rare, Section 250 criminalises homosexuality by stating: “Any person who is guilty of the crime of sodomy … shall be

The death of former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens underscores just how far the Supreme Court has come on LGBTQ rights–and just how far the Court has regressed. Stevens, who died yesterday at the age of 99, served on the Court for 35 years, retiring in 2010. A registered Repubilcan, Stevens was appointed to the Court by Gerald Ford. At the time, Stevens was considered a conservative–at least by 1970s standards. But as a justice, Stevens eventually emerged as the...

The Collection of the Supreme Court of the United StatesAmazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google are among the 206 major U.S. and international corporations that signed an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, July 2, to argue that sexual orientation and gender identity should be included in federal civil rights law. Per NBC News, the brief comes three months before the Supreme Court is due to hear arguments in three cases involving LGBTQ workplace discrimination, after which the...

The Supreme Court’s decided to punt on the case of a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. That only delays the inevitable day of judgment. But perhaps the biggest impact on marriage equality came in an entirely different case and Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in it. The case in question was about legal double jeopardy, in which you can’t be tried twice for the same crime. An Alabama man who had faced both federal...

Costa Rica’s Supreme Court voted to end the ban on same-sex marriage earlier this week. According to Deutsche Welle, the Costa Rican Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday night that the laws banning same-sex marriage were discriminatory and must be immediately changed. The Supreme Court made this decision after the historic Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling from January. While that original ruling was born from a Costa Rican case and acted as an example that marriage equality should be legal in...

An LGBTQ church in the Philippines’ Quezon city held several gay weddings earlier today. The weddings, which were merely ceremonial as gay marriage is still illegal in the country, were held by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Straight (LGBTS) Christian Church at 8 am, according to Efe which also has video and photos of the event. The Church holds this mass wedding every year to give LGBTQ citizens the opportunity to at least participate in the wedding ritual. While the Philippines...

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear arguments in the case of Charles Rhines, a South Dakota prisoner who says he was sentenced to death by a homophobic jury. Keep in mind that Rhines is not innocent in the slightest. In 1992, he was caught in the middle of a burglary. Rhines tried to rob a doughnut shop in Rapid City, which was the workplace of 22-year-old Donnican Schaeffer. Rhines ended up stabbing Schaeffer in the abdomen and...

Progress keeps trucking along In a 4-1 vote on Tuesday (9 January), the city leaders of Paducah, Kentucky voted to pass an anti-discrimination law. Paducah became the ninth city in the state to pass what’s known as a fairness ordinance. It consists of explicit laws banning discrimination of LGBT people for housing and public services. It’s the first town in western Kentucky to pass a fairness ordinance. The town, settled in 1821, currently boasts a population a little over 25,000. Other Kentucky towns...

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy praised Andrew McDonald's “temperament, compassion and intellect.” The first openly gay member of the Connecticut Supreme Court looks to be making history again: Andrew J. McDonald was nominated to become with a nomination to become chief justice on Monday by Democratic Governor Dannel P. Malloy. If confirmed, the 51-year-old former state Senator will be the first out state Supreme Court justice in the U.S. He would replace Chief Justice Chase T. Rogers, who is retiring in early...

This is huge news and could lead to the decriminalization of homosexuality in India India’s Supreme Court will reexamine whether a section of the country’s Penal Code that outlaws homosexuality is constitutionally valid. Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code bans ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature’, which includes same-sex relations. The law is hangover from British colonial rule, who introduced the law while India was still under British control. But on Monday afternoon (8 January), a three-judge bench of the...

Guess what? If you get attacked because you’re gay in the state of West Virginia, the justice system won’t protect you. This past Tuesday, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that the hate crime law in the state doesn’t apply to anti-gay assaults or any crime based on sexual orientation. This ruling came down to a 3 to 2 vote that will now greatly affect the LGBTQ people living in the state. Now those people will have no protection...

AUSTIN — The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a Texas Supreme Court ruling that prevented same-sex spouses from having the same workplace insurance benefits as heterosexual couples. In a unanimous ruling in June, the Texas court acknowledged that same-sex marriage was legalized in 2015 with Obergefell vs. Hodges, but the justices said the decision did not make clear the additional rights of gay couples, in this case those who work for the government. Houston pastor Jack Pidgeon and accountant...

A decision in favour of the baker could lead to widespread discrimination A gay couple’s landmark wedding cake case will appear before the US Supreme Court today (December 5). The legal battle began back in 2012 when baker Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, refused to make David Mullins and Charlie Craig a cake for their wedding. Phillips claimed making the cake went against his Christian beliefs and said it was his “standard business practice not to provide cakes for same-sex...