Tag Archives: SCOTUS

Gay History - January 13, 1958: Landmark Case One, Inc. v. Olesen, Supreme Court rules in favor of magazine “One: The Homosexual Magazine.”

Gay History – January 13, 1958: Landmark Case ONE, Inc. v. Olesen, Supreme Court rules in favor of magazine “One: The Homosexual Magazine.”

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January 13, 1958: In the landmark case One Inc. v. Olesen, the United States Supreme Court rules in favor of the First Amendment rights of the gay community magazine “One: The Homosexual Magazine.”

In the original case  One, Inc. v. Olesen, 241 F.2d 772 (9th Cir. 1957), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a magazine published for a homosexual audience was obscene and was therefore not constitutionally protected under the First Amendment . The case arose when the postmaster of the city of Los Angeles, Otto K. Olesen, ordered federal postal authorities to seize One informing the publisher that he considered it “obscene, lewd, lascivious and filthy” and “non-mailable” under federal law

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit emphasized that it would base its ruling on the effect of the words on the reader, insisting that it was not “its brothers’ keeper as to the type of reading to be indulged in.” However, in announcing the opinion for the circuit court, Judge John Rolly Ross noted that although the magazine stated its aim was to provide educational and informative material, it “has a primary purpose of exciting lust, lewd and lascivious thoughts and sensual desires in the minds of the persons reading it.”

The judge described one of the articles, as “cheap pornography.” and added that he believed homosexuality could only be discussed from a “scientific, historical and critical point of view.”  found the magazine as a whole “obscene and filthy” and upheld the lower court’s ruling that the postmaster was justified.

On January 13, 1958, the Supreme Court accepted the case and, without hearing oral argument, issued a terse per curiam decision reversing the Ninth Circuit. The decision, citing its June 24, 1957, landmark decision in Roth v. United States 354 U.S. 476 (1957), read in its entirety:

On the same day, the court issued a similar per curiam decision also citing Roth in Sunshine Book Co. v. Summerfield, which concerned the distribution of two nudist magazines.

One, Inc. v. Olesen was the first U.S. Supreme Court ruling to deal with homosexuality and the first to address free speech rights with respect to homosexuality. 

What Fuckery Will SCOTUS Be Up To In It's Next Session? Affirmative Action and Gay Rights Of Course.

What Fuckery Will SCOTUS Be Up To In It’s Next Session? Affirmative Action and Gay Rights Of Course.

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When its next nine-month term begins in October the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on the use of race in college admissions and the intersection and the use of free speech and gay rights.

The 2022-2023 court term includes several cases that will test the court’s commitment to precedent.:

GAY RIGHTS- SCOTUS will hear an appeal from Lorie Smith, a Colorado resident, is challenging a state law that prohibits businesses from discriminating on a variety of factors, including sexual orientation.  Smith refused to start creating pages for same-sex weddings because doing so would be at odds with her faith.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: SCOTUS will hear an appeal from a special interest group called Students for Fair Admissions accused Harvard of favoring Black and Hispanic applicants over Asian Americans. Lawrence Bacow, Harvard’s president, has said eliminating race as a factor would make it more challenging for the school to create a diverse student body. In the North Carolina case, the Supreme Court took the rare step of intervening before a trial judge’s decision made it to the appellate level.

It looks like it might be a rough Fall.

Gay History - June 30: Cincinnati Police Ignore Anti-Gay Public Pool Riot, Bowers v. Hardwick, Jacob de Haan Assassinated, and MORE!

Gay History – June 30: Cincinnati Police Ignore Anti-Gay Public Pool Riot, Bowers v. Hardwick, Jacob de Haan Assassinated, and MORE!

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June 30th…….

1924:  Jacob Israel de Haan, Dutch writer and journalist, is assassinated at age 42 for his contacts with Arab leaders. His killer claims never to have known about Haan’s homosexuality, and said further, “I neither heard nor knew about this,” adding “why is it someone’s business what he does at his home?” According to Gert Hekma, Zionists spread a rumor he had been killed by Arabs because of his sexual relations with Arab boys

1973:  The first lesbian conference in Canada is held at Toronto’s YWCA.

1974:  43,000 attended the 5th Annual Christopher Street Liberation Day Parade, more than double the number from the previous year.  The years parade included floats and themes for the first time./

1975:  Canada’s National Gay Rights Conference sees formation of National Gay Rights Coalition which is renamed the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Rights Coalition / Coalition Canadienne pour les droits des lesbiennes et des gais (CLGRC / CCDLG) in 1978. It folds two years later.

1979:  In London, England, 8,000 join the Gay Pride march from the Embankment to Hyde Park to hear Tom Robinson sing.

1979:  A group of 40 people in Cincinnati Ohio who had reserved a city park pool in the division of Clifton for a Gay Pride party are attacked by local residents who throw rocks and bottles at them. Police arrived, watched for a while and then drove away doing nothing. One man had to be rescued by a television news crew. Police refused to return, even after several calls reporting a riot.

1981:  Moncton, New Brunswick, city council passes a last-minute law to prevent a gay picnic from taking place in Centennial Park to celebrate Canada Day. Groups of gay people hold picnic anyway.

1981:  Governor Bob Graham of Florida signed the Trask Amendment into law which denied state funding to any university or college which allowed gay/lesbian/bisexual student organizations. It would later be struck down by the Florida Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

1984:  The Unitarian Church in the U.S. voted to approve ceremonies uniting same-sex couples.

1986:  The U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in the case of Bowers v. Hardwick, a case challenging the constitutionality of the Georgia sodomy law.

Michael Hardwick was 29 and tending bar at a gay pub in Atlanta, Georgia, he threw a beer bottle into an outdoor trash can and got cited by the police for public drinking. The cop wrote down the wrong day on his summons. When Hardwick didn’t show up in court as a result, an arrest warrant was issued. An officer later showed up at his apartment to serve the warrant, and a guest who’d been sleeping on the living room couch said he wasn’t sure if Hardwick was home. The cop decided to take a look and found Hardwick in his bedroom, having oral sex with a man and they were both arrested for sodomy.

Hardwick’s case was dismissed without a trial by the district court, and then he actually won on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, where a panel of judges found that his fundamental right to privacy had been violated. . But when Hardwick’s case came to the Supreme Court, Justice Byron White didn’t frame it in terms of privacy or any other civil right. “The issue presented,” he wrote, “is whether the Federal Constitution confers a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy.” The answer was no. White got there by saying that proscriptions against homosexual conduct had “ancient roots,” stressing that at the time 24 states and the District of Columbia continued to outlaw sodomy

The court voted 5-4 to uphold the sodomy law.

White famously got the fifth vote that made his opinion speak for the majority from Justice Lewis Powell, a moderate, who said at the time that he didn’t know any gay people. (He meant openly gay people, since it turned out he had a gay clerk.).  Four years later, Powell famously told a group of law students that he regretted his decision. “I think I probably made a mistake in that one,” he said.

1986:  Dr. William Haseltine responds to a U.S. justice department memo which claimed that he said that HIV could be casually transmitted. He said his statements had been distorted and that casual contact posed no significant threat. Assistant Attorney General Charles Cooper later apologized to him.

1987:  After spending three years in jail for treason, South African AIDS activist Simon Nkoli was released on bail.

Nikoli founded the Gay and Lesbian Organization of the Witwatersrand in 1988. He traveled widely and was given several human rights awards in Europe and North America. He was a member of International Lesbian and Gay Association board, representing the African region. After becoming one of the first publicly HIV-positive African gay men, he initiated the Positive African Men group based in central Johannesburg.

Nikoli died of AIDS in 1998 in Johannesburg

1989:  Activists protest outside the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC because of the cancellation of an exhibit of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe.

1990:  Gays in London, England, lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in memory of gays killed in Germany during the Holocaust.

1995:  British publication Capital Gay puts out its last issue.

1998:  Lawmakers in Catalonia Spain passed a bill which gives same sex couples the same inheritance and alimony rights as married couples, but stopped short of allowing the adoption of children. Catholic groups condemned the bill, saying it institutionalized immoral behavior.

2000:  David Copeland, 24, is convicted murder for planting a bomb in a London gay bar a year earlier.  Copeland a  Neo-Nazi militant  became known as the “London Nail Bomber” after a 13-day bombing campaign in April 1999 aimed at London’s black, Bangladeshi and gay communities.

2001:  Dozens are injured in Belgrade as roving bands of young thugs attack participants the first gay-rights march in Yugoslavia’s capital.

2005:  Spain becomes the fourth country in the world (after Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada) to legalize gay marriage as the Spanish parliament gives final approval to a bill authorizing same-sex weddings. To no one’s surprise the Catholic Church howled in protest, but the law passed anyway.

2009:  After a strenuous court battle, the Minnesota Supreme Court race was finally decided by a state Supreme Court ruling in favor of Al Franken. Franken is considered a great ally to have in the Senate, as he has spoken numerous times on his intent to vote in favor of expanding rights for gays, and because his vote makes a “filibuster proof” majority.

 

82-02-05 Bush-Trask amendment unconstitutional -

Uber Masculine GOP Senator Josh Hawley: It’s “Misogynistic” To Ask Thomas To Recuse Himself

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‘She’s (Ginny Thomas is) an independent, adult woman, it just seems a little strange to me all of these calls for her husband to be what, like, minding her better? Frankly, I think it’s kind of misogynistic. ‘She’s a private individual. He’s a justice on the US Supreme Court, but I think this idea that he is somehow automatically responsible for everything he says – what does that mean? Does she have to get his permission?’

The Daily Mail

Regressives always use big words wrong.

Sugar tits Hawley (see pic below) must have skipped the ethics course at law school. Judges should recuse if there is even the appearance of a conflict of interest, which there obviously is in this case. The purpose is to encourage public confidence in the integrity of the courts.

Have some more wine Josh!

David Bergstein on Twitter: "This photo of Josh Hawley wine shopping at 2:30 on a workday pretty much sums everything up on this one #MOSEN https://t.co/LgF3MdqlmJ" / Twitter

Gay History – November 17, 1998: John Lawrence Arrested In His Home For Having Gay Sex. Lawrence vs. Texas Begins

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In 1960 every state in America had an anti-sodomy law on its books.

In 1961, the American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code advocated the repeal of sodomy laws as they applied to private, adult, consensual behavior. Two years later the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took its first major case in opposition to these laws. Most judges were largely unsympathetic to the substantive due process claims raised.

But one of the biggest steps toward gay equality, the end of America’s sodomy laws, began 20+ years ago on November 17, 1998 when a 911 operator received a call about “a black male going crazy with a gun” at John Geddes Lawrence’s home in the Houston suburbs. Harris County sheriff’s deputies responded and entered Lawrence’s unlocked apartment. There, they purportedly found Lawrence and Tyron Garner engaging in consensual sex. What they actually found is a matter of debate. Lawrence and Garner weren’t lovers — in fact, that false report had been phoned in by Garner’s actual lover, Robert Eubanks, who suspected Garner and Lawrence were having an affair. One deputy wrote in his report that he saw Garner on the bed “on all fours” on the receiving end of anal sex with Lawrence, and that both were completely naked. Another said that he saw them on the floor, and that Garner wasn’t naked. He wasn’t sure whether he saw them having anal sex or oral sex — two completely different acts which would be very difficult to confuse. “The black guy was giving him head or they was [sic] doing each other from behind. I don’t remember.”

Lawrence and Garner were arrested, held in jail overnight, and charged with violating Section 21.06 of the Texas Penal Code. That law, otherwise known as the Texas Homosexual Conduct law, prohibited engaging “in deviant sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex.” They both denied having sex that night, but their lawyers, sensing that the case might have the makings of a landmark case, advised them to plead no contest, neither admitting guilt nor protesting innocence. Because they didn’t actually have sex, the lawyers didn’t want to make the case about their innocence. After all, it’s hard to argue that two consenting adults of the same sex have the right to have sexual relations in the privacy of their home when the two adults in question hadn’t actually had sex. And so on November 20, 1998, Lawrence and Garner were convicted of the Class C misdemeanor by a Justice of the Peace in Houston, and were fined $200 each.

And with that, the landmark case of Lawrence v. Texas began to make its way through the court system: to the Texas Criminal Court (which rejected the defense’s request to dismiss the charges), a three-judge panel of the Texas 14th Court of Appeals (which ruled the law unconstitutional), and the full nine-judge panel of the 14th Court of Appeals (which reversed the three-judge panel). The appeal then reached the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which serves as the state’s supreme court for criminal cases. That court refused to hear the case, which left the lower court’s decision standing. Lawrence vs. Texas was then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. On June 26, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Texas anti-sodomy law in a 6-3 ruling, along with similar laws in twelve other states.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion which Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer joined. The Court held that homosexuals had a protected liberty interest to engage in private, sexual activity; that homosexuals’ moral and sexual choices were entitled to constitutional protection; and that moral disapproval did not provide a legitimate justification for Texas’s law criminalizing sodomy.[36]

Kennedy wrote: “The petitioners [Lawrence and Garner] are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.” Kennedy reviewed the assumption the court made in Bowers, using the words of Chief Justice Burger’s concurring opinion in that case, that “Condemnation of [homosexual practices] is firmly rooted in Judeao-Christian moral and ethical standards.”

He reviewed the history of legislation that criminalized certain sexual practices, but without regard for the gender of those involved. He cited the Model Penal Code’s recommendations since 1955, the Wolfenden Report of 1963, and a 1981 decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Case 7525/76 Dudgeon v UK.

He endorsed the views Justice Stevens had outlined in his dissent in Bowers and wrote: “Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent. Bowers v. Hardwick should be and now is overruled.” The majority decision also held that the intimate, adult consensual conduct at issue here was part of the liberty protected by the substantive component of the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process protections. Kennedy said that the Constitution protects “personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, [and] child rearing” and that homosexuals “may seek autonomy for these purposes.” Holding that “the Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual”, the court struck down the anti-sodomy law as unconstitutional. Kennedy underscored the decision’s focus on consensual adult sexual conduct in a private setting:

The present case does not involve minors. It does not involve persons who might be injured or coerced or who are situated in relationships where consent might not easily be refused. It does not involve public conduct or prostitution. It does not involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter.

What should not come to a shock to any is that Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a dissent stating:

Today’s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct…. [T]he Court has taken sides in the culture war, departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the democratic rules of engagement are observed.

He cited the majority opinion’s concern that the criminalization of sodomy could be the basis for discrimination against homosexuals as evidence that the majority ignored the views of most Americans:

So imbued is the Court with the law profession’s anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the attitudes of that culture are not obviously “mainstream”; that in most States what the Court calls “discrimination” against those who engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal.

He continued: “Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic means.” The majority’s “invention of a brand-new ‘constitutional right'”, he wrote, showed it was “impatient of democratic change”.

The case attracted much public attention, and a large number of amici curiae (“friends of the court”) briefs were filed. Its outcome was celebrated by gay rights advocates, and set the stage for further reconsideration’s of standing law, including the landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges which recognized same-sex marriage as a fundamental right.

WORDS! - GOP Senators On The Record Previously for Putting SCOTUS Nominations On Hold In An Election Year

HOLD THEM TO THEIR WORDS! – 12 Notorious GOP Senators On The Record Previously for Putting SCOTUS Nominations On Hold In An Election Year

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These notorious Republican Senators are all on the record in the past for holding up any Supreme Court nominations in an election year when it behooved their party. The American people must must be reminded of their past words and they must be held to them.

2016, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas): “It has been 80 years since a Supreme Court vacancy was nominated and confirmed in an election year. There is a long tradition that you don’t do this in an election year.”

2018, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.): “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election.”

2016, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.): “I don’t think we should be moving on a nominee in the last year of this president’s term – I would say that if it was a Republican president.”

2016, Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.): “The very balance of our nation’s highest court is in serious jeopardy. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I will do everything in my power to encourage the president and Senate leadership not to start this process until we hear from the American people.”

2016, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa): “A lifetime appointment that could dramatically impact individual freedoms and change the direction of the court for at least a generation is too important to get bogged down in politics. The American people shouldn’t be denied a voice.”

2016, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.): “The campaign is already under way. It is essential to the institution of the Senate and to the very health of our republic to not launch our nation into a partisan, divisive confirmation battle during the very same time the American people are casting their ballots to elect our next president.”

2016, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.): “In this election year, the American people will have an opportunity to have their say in the future direction of our country. For this reason, I believe the vacancy left open by Justice Antonin Scalia should not be filled until there is a new president.”

2016, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.): “The Senate should not confirm a new Supreme Court justice until we have a new president.”

2016, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Col.): “I think we’re too close to the election. The president who is elected in November should be the one who makes this decision.”

2016, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio): “I believe the best thing for the country is to trust the American people to weigh in on who should make a lifetime appointment that could reshape the Supreme Court for generations. This wouldn’t be unusual. It is common practice for the Senate to stop acting on lifetime appointments during the last year of a presidential term, and it’s been nearly 80 years since any president was permitted to immediately fill a vacancy that arose in a presidential election year.”

2016, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.): “I strongly agree that the American people should decide the future direction of the Supreme Court by their votes for president and the majority party in the U.S. Senate.”

“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.” – Mitch McConnell, March 2016.

PLEASE share this page or feel free to copy and paste these quotations on social media far and wide. We must raise our voices and demand fairness. SILENCE IS OUR ENEMY.

Tony Perkin's FRC Hate Group Prays Against The Equality Act, Uses Death to Gays Bible Scripture

FRC Hate Group Leader Tony Perkins Prays For Jesus To Turn Back The LGBT “Darkness”

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Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council hate group prayer of the day:

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued its ruling on three combined LGBT employment discrimination cases. The ruling redefines and reinterprets the term “sex” in the 1964 Civil Rights Act to mean not only biological gender — male or female — as intended by Congress in 1964, but also “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

Shockingly, Chief Justice Roberts (a George W. Bush appointee) and Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch (a Donald Trump appointee) abandoned any semblance of judicial restraint and constitutional integrity and sided with the liberal wing of the Court to rewrite the simple meaning of the English language, rewrite history, rewrite the Constitution, and posture the legal foundation of the United States in audacious defiance against the Word of God and the God of the Bible.

Father, nothing but your heavenly intervention and aid can turn back the darkness we face, but you have called us for such a time as this. May each and all of us who call you Lord humble ourselves before you and consecrate ourselves afresh to you and to do your will. Help us to hear your voice as never before and to act on you word. Intervene, Lord, open the eyes of your people. We must arise as one person to prayer and action. Lead and guide us to win back our nation to you! (Ex 23:6-8; Lev 19:15; Dt 1:16-17; Ps 19:7; Pr 31:8-9; Mt 19:4-5, 28:18-20; Eph 1:20-22; 1 Tim 1:8-11, 6:11-16; 2 Tim 3:16)

Please note that Perkins’ uses the homophobic Bible chapter of Leviticus. Which he probably uses so his demented followers will think of  Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” and the infamous Leviticus 20:13 which reads: “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” This is done purposely.

Perkins a known associate of white supremacist and racial hate groups also regularly prays for Macy’s White Sale so he can buy material for new robes and hoods.

SCOTUS Ethics Breach: Supreme Court Judges Alito and Kavanaugh Meet w/ Anti-LGBT Hate Group Leader

SCOTUS Ethics Breach: Supreme Court Judges Alito and Kavanaugh Meet w/ Anti-LGBT Hate Group Leader

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Via the website Above The Law:

If the Supreme Court followed the basic rules of ethics applicable to every other court, Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh would have to recuse themselves from the Bostock, Altitude Express, and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes cases — the ones which seek to reinterpret Title VII to allow for bigotry against the LGBT community. Alito and Kavanaugh took some sort of meeting and even posed for a picture with the leader of a virulent anti-LGBT group, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

It’s really bad enough that conservative justices are so willing to give public aid and comfort to right-wing groups like the Federalist Society. But this meeting with the NOM is is outrageous. NOM has filed an amicus brief with the Court in the Bostock/Altitude/Funeral Homes cases. The Court has heard arguments and the justices are ostensibly working on their opinions in those cases RIGHT NOW. Taking meeting and a picture with people who have a case and argument pending in front of you would be unacceptable for any other court in the land.

Brian Brown has a long history of anti-gay activism is working to get the Supreme Court to overturn its 2015 Obergefell decision. He also has publically denounced presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s marriage as illegitimate.

SCOTUS unfortunately is not subject to the same ethics rules that all other judges in the country are.

Gay NYC Councilman Corey Johnson Introduces Bill to Repeal Cities Ban On LGBT Conversion Therapy

Gay NYC Councilman Corey Johnson Introduces Bill to Repeal City’s Ban On LGBT Conversion Therapy

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New York’s openly gay City Council speaker Corey Johnson has introduced a bill to repeal the city’s ban on LGBT “conversion therapy” in fear that the Supreme Court would overturn it.

Johnson a former blogger who has aspirations to run for NYC mayor told the New York Times that he supports the city ordinance but also fears that it could give “right-wing groups” ammunition to take similar laws down nationwide. This comes after the anti-LGBT hate group the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a lawsuit that challenged the constitutionality of the ban.”

“Obviously I didn’t want to repeal this,” Johnson said. “I don’t want to be someone who is giving in to these right-wing groups. But the Supreme Court has become conservative; the Second Circuit, which oversees New York, has become more conservative. We think this is the most responsible, prudent course. The sad reality is the courts have changed considerably over the last few years, and we cannot count on them to rule in favor of much-needed protections for the LGBTQ community.

The ADF filed a federal lawsuit in January on behalf of Dr. Dovid Schwartz, a licensed psychotherapist and member of the orthodox Chabad Lubavitch Jewish community.” 

Currently 18 states ban conversion therapy.

Is Johnson right in trying to repeal the ban on the dangerous practice of gay conversion therapy that has harmed and in some cases driven its victims to suicide out of fear of what “might” happen?

Leave your opinions in the comment section below.

Michigan LGBT Rights Ballot Initiative Falls Short Of Signatures Needed

Supreme Court Set to Decide If The 1964 Civil Rights Act Applies to LGBT Workers

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The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would decide whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 guarantees protections from workplace discrimination to gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans Americans.

The three cases have been accepted by the court to be heard.  One of them is Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda, No. 17-1623:

The New York case was brought by a skydiving instructor, Donald Zarda, who said he was fired because he was gay. His dismissal followed a complaint from a female customer who had voiced concerns about being tightly strapped to Mr. Zarda during a tandem dive. Mr. Zarda, hoping to reassure the customer, told her that he was “100 percent gay.”

Mr. Zarda sued under Title VII and lost the initial rounds. He died in a 2014 skydiving accident, and his estate pursued his case.

Last year, a divided 13-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit allowed the lawsuit to proceed. Writing for the majority, Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann concluded that “sexual orientation discrimination is motivated, at least in part, by sex and is thus a subset of sex discrimination.”

The arguments in the Second Circuit had a curious feature: Lawyers for the federal government appeared on both sides. One lawyer, representing the E.E.O.C., said Title VII barred discrimination against gay people. Another, representing the Trump administration, took the contrary view.

The second case: Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga., No. 17-1618. was brought by a child welfare services coordinator who said he was fired for being gay. The 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, ruled against him in a short, unsigned opinion that cited a 1979 decision that had ruled that “discharge for homosexuality is not prohibited by Title VII.”

The third case: R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, No. 18-107, concerns Aimee Stephens, who was fired from a Michigan funeral home after she announced in 2013 that she was a transgender woman and would start working in women’s clothing.  Ms. Stephens had worked at the funeral home for six years.  Two weeks after her announcement the funeral home’s owner, Thomas Rost, fired Ms. Stephens. Asked for the “specific reason that you terminated Stephens,” Mr. Rost said: “Well, because he was no longer going to represent himself as a man.

The cases mark a pivotal moment in the fight for gay civil rights, but the current composition of the court with its two new Trump appointees ― Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch ― has many LGBT advocates and Americans worried.

Currently, 30 states lack laws that explicitly prohibit discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations on the basis of both sexual orientation or gender identity

The three cases will be heard sometime in the fall of 2019.