Tag Archives: Supreme Court

SO GAY! – LGBT Weekly News Roundup 1/30/2022

Supreme Court Rules That LGBT Americans Are Covered Under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Cannot Be Fired For Being Gay

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NBC News reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that existing federal law forbids job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, a major victory for advocates of gay rights — and a surprising one from an increasingly conservative court.

The decision said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate because of a person’s sex, among other factors, also covers sexual orientation. It upheld rulings from lower courts that said sexual orientation discrimination was a form of sex discrimination.

Across the nation, 21 states have their own laws prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Seven more provide that protection only to public employees. Those laws remain in force, but Monday’s ruling means federal law now provides similar protection for LGBT employees in the rest of the country.

The 6-3 opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four liberal justices.

“An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids,” Gorsuch wrote.

You can read the historic ruling by clicking HERE

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.

Trump Administration's Dept. of Health and Human Services To Drop LGBT Protections

Donald Trump Tells Supreme Court Legalize Firing LGBT Americans

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Via  Buzzfeed News:

The Trump administration took its hardest line yet to legalize anti-gay discrimination on Friday when it asked the Supreme Court to declare that federal law allows private companies to fire workers based only on their sexual orientation. An amicus brief filed by the DOJ weighs in on two cases involving gay workers and what is meant by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination “because of sex.”

The administration argues courts nationwide should stop reading the civil rights law to protect gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers from bias because it was not originally intended to do so. That view conflicts with some lower court rulings that found targeting someone for their sexual orientation is an illegal form of both sex discrimination and sex stereotyping under Title VII.

The Log Cabin Republicans did not respond to emails from this website for comment.

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.

Chief Justice John Roberts Sat On Dozen Of Judicial Misconduct Complaints Against Kavanaugh

BREAKING: Chief Justice John Roberts Sat On Dozens Of Judicial Misconduct Complaints Against Kavanaugh

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The Washington Post is reporting that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has received more than a dozen judicial misconduct complaints in recent weeks against Brett M. Kavanaugh and held them until Kavanaugh was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice on Saturday, and not to referring them to a judicial panel for investigation as they should have been.

Sources say the Judge, Karen LeCraft Henderson, who sits on the court on which Kavanaugh serves — passed on to Roberts a string of complaints the court received starting three weeks ago.

In a statement Saturday, Henderson said the complaints centered on untruthful statements Kavanaugh made during his Senate confirmation hearings.

Under the law, “any person may file a misconduct complaint in the circuit in which the federal judge sits,” she said in the statement. The complaints seek investigations only of the public statements he has made as a nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

People familiar with the matter say the allegations made in the complaints — that Kavanaugh was dishonest and lacked judicial temperament during his Senate testimony.

Roberts’s decision not to immediately refer the cases to another appeals court has caused concern in the legal community. Now that he has been confirmed, the details of the complaints may not become public and instead may be dismissed, legal experts say. Supreme Court justices are not subject to the misconduct rules governing these claims.

Kathleen Arberg, a spokeswoman for the Supreme Court, declined to comment, citing judicial rules requiring confidentiality for misconduct complaints.

Roberts, an appointee of President George W. Bush, has for many years hired Kavanaugh clerks to work for him at the Supreme Court. Bush credits Kavanaugh in his book with helping him choose Roberts for the high court when Kavanaugh was a White House lawyer.

 

 

 

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Extreme Right Polish PM Accuses European Union of Blackmail Over LGBT Rights

Poland’s Supreme Court Rules Against Printer For Refusing To Make LGBT Banner

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Coming less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly sided with a Colorado baker who refused to make a custom cake for a same-sex wedding after the Colorado Civil Rights Commission violated the baker’s First Amendment rights. This week the Polish Supreme Court ruled against a print shop worker who refused to create a banner for an LGBT group, a decision hailed as a victory by gay rights groups in the country.

The court upheld a lower court ruling that the Lodz-based worker violated Polish laws that prohibit the denial of professional services “without a valid reason,” according to the Financial Times.

Slava Melnyk, a spokesperson for the Polish LGBT activist group Campaign Against Homophobia, told the Financial Times that the ruling in Poland was a “historic victory for equality.” 

“Today’s verdict is a big celebration of equality and a reason for joy for everyone who believes in law, equality and justice,” Melnyk said. “It’s also a moment to be proud of — Poland reached a milestone towards LGBT equality, and can share this with the whole world.”

Meanwhile while Poland’s LGBT rights march forward America’s is under attack everyday since Donald Trump was elected as President in 2016.

 

Trump Administration’s DOJ To Argue On Behalf Of Anti-Gay Baker Before Supreme Court

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U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco of The Department of Justice  submitted a motion for argument time to the high court on Wednesday in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Commission on Civil Rights  in support of a Colorado baker who refused on religious grounds to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

The National Law Journal reported in September that the Justice Department was internally divided over whether to participate at all in the case. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, overcoming objections, directed the filing of the amicus brief, according to lawyers with knowledge of the decision.

In its motion for argument time, Francisco told the justices: “As a general matter, the United States has a substantial interest in the preservation of federal constitutional rights of free expression. In addition, the United States has a particular interest in the scope of such rights in the context of the Colorado statute here, which shares certain features with federal public accommodations laws, including Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Senators during Francisco’s confirmation process questioned his remarks at a Heritage Foundation event in which he spotlighted the plaintiffs in big social cases against the Obama administration. He noted plaintiffs challenging the Affordable Care Act included a group of nuns, Catholic Charities and “inner city” Catholic schools.

“On marriage,” Francisco said in the Heritage speech, “[we] need to do the same. Focus on the florist, on the baker, the sincere small businessmen under attack.”

SCOTUS Takes The Cake: Supreme Court To Hear Anti-Gay Baker Case

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The Supreme Court decided Monday to hear a case involving a Colorado baker’s refusal to design and make a cake for a same-sex marriage. The baker, Jake Phillips, declined to make the custom cake and said it conflicted with his religious beliefs.

The Colorado Civil Rights Commission decided that Phillips’ actions amounted to sexual orientation discrimination under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. The Colorado Court of Appeals said the commission’s ruling did not violate the First Amendment because Phillips’ speech was “conduct compelled by a neutral and generally applicable law,” as attorneys for Phillips noted in their petition to the high court.

The case comes from the home state of Justice Neil Gorsuch, who joined the high court in April. The Supreme Court relisted the case several times for consideration, as it may have been waiting for a full nine-justice court to hear the case. – The Washington Examiner

Of course Anti-LGBT hate group leader Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council jump all over this news and sent out a word salad press release.

The U.S. Supreme Court now has an opportunity to issue a ruling that makes clear the government has no authority to force Americans like Jack Phillips to use their artistic talents to celebrate events with which they have a moral and/or religious disagreement.

With Justice Gorsuch now on the bench, we are more optimistic that the Supreme Court will uphold our nation’s long tradition of respecting the freedom of Americans to follow their deeply held beliefs, especially when it comes to participating in activities and ceremonies that so many Americans consider sacred.

The First Amendment has long protected Americans from being compelled by the government to advocate a message to which one objects. As Americans, our consensus on religious freedom has historically recognized the God-given right of Americans to live all aspects of their lives according to their faith. This is no different today. Attempting to restrict religious conviction to the four walls of a church is not freedom, that is tyranny.

Now remind me again who wants “special rights”?

“The bakery claims … that its owner’s religious belief gives it a special right to defy the law…”

 

GOP Presidential Wannabe Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum Says If Elected He’ll Enforce DOMA

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Santorum is an Idiot

 

I tell you kids, you just can’t make this stuff up.

GOP Presidential Nominee wannabe Rick “Man on Dog”  Santorum who is polling at 0% says he would start fix the Supreme Court by enforcing DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 that banned the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages even though that same Supreme Court in 2013 ruled Section 3 of DOMA unconstitutional.  But Santorum disagrees, and says the court’s decision “wholly” was wrong he would still try to enforce the now defunct law.

That’s where I would start,” Santorum says. “This was a decision that was extra-constitutional. That law is good, valid law and I would enforce that law.”

Someone pass Rick some Charmin so he can wipe his mouth because he is talking some crazy idiotic “santorum” once again.

 

Ted Cruz: "Gun Laws Don't Work" (Especially after the almost half a million dollars I've gotten from the NRA and others.)

LISTEN: Ted Cruz’s Phone Call With Anti-Gay Extremist “Porno Pete” LaBarbera and E.W. Jackson – Audio

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Ted Cruz I Hate Homos

An audio-tape has surfaced of a phone call which happened last week between Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz and a failed GOP nominee for the post of Virginia’s Lieutenant Governor, and anti-gay activist and hate group leader Peter LaBarbera in which Cruz vows he would actively fight against  and to reverse gay rights.

On the call Cruz talks about the question about the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage, comparing it to the Court’s ruling on abortion in Roe v. Wade,

Right Wing Watch:

“It is the decision reminiscent of Roe v. Wade of a handful of unelected judges arrogantly and lawlessly decreeing the authority to fundamentally change our country and to tear down the foundations of the country,” Cruz added.

He also criticized Republicans who decided to “surrender” to the Supreme Court and treat Obergefell as the “settled law of the land.”

“My response to this decision was that it was illegitimate, it was lawless, it was utterly contrary to the Constitution and that we should fight to defend marriage on every front,” he said, before promoting constitutional amendments to overturn the ruling and put justices up for retention elections, along with legislation “to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over challenges to marriage.”

On LGBT rights and military service referring the repeal of DADT and the right to serve Cruz commented that he was “just hearing terrible things” about the military being “beset with these new LGBT rules”:

“You look at the military and one of the things we’ve seen is morale in the military under the Obama administration has plummeted, and it has plummeted because you have a commander-in-chief that doesn’t support our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines, you have a commander-in-chief that doesn’t stand up against our enemies, that won’t even acknowledge or say the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ and you have a commander-in-chief that treats the military as a cauldron for social experimentation. He’s more interested in promoting homosexuality in the military than he is in defeating our enemy.

For example, the military is now focused on trying to promote transgendered [sic] soldiers. The role of the military is not to be some left-wing social experiment. The reason we have the brave men and women who sign up as service men and women to defend this nation is to stand for our values, to protect our safety and security, to protect innocent men and women and to stand up and defeat our enemies, and I would stop the shameless politicizing of our military to push a left-wing agenda that is contrary to the values and contrary to who we are as an American people and a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values.”

Cruz went on to add that he wanted  “to strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over challenges to marriage.” saying “we will not use the federal government to enforce this lawless decision that is a usurpation of the authority of we the people in this country.”

LaBarbera, the D: List hate group leader of president of Americans For Truth about Homosexuality  praised Cruz for his anti-gay advocacy, calling him a “real believer”.

You can listen to the conversation below.