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Prop 8 attorneys confident court will strike down marriage ban

Olson hopes U.S. gov’t will take part in lawsuit

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Ted Olson, gay news, Washington Blade
Ted Olson speaks at the Cato Institute

Ted Olson said U.S. government intervention in the Prop 8 case would have “great effect’ on its outcome (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The organizers behind the lawsuit challenging California’s Proposition 8 are excited and optimistic about the prospects for a Supreme Court ruling against the anti-gay measure as one attorney on the team said he hopes the Obama administration will assist in the effort.

Ted Olson, a co-counsel in the Prop 8 lawsuit, made the remarks during a conference call on Friday in response to a question from Politico’s Josh Gerstein. Olson said a friend-of-the-court brief from the Justice Department would have “great effect” in the effort to overturn Prop 8.

“I would hate to predict what the United States government is doing, but given the stand the president of the United States and the attorney general of the United States made with respect to marriage equality, we would certainly hope that they would participate,” Olson said. “And I’m quite confident that if they did participate, they would support our position in this case because the denial of equal rights is subject to close scrutiny by the courts and cannot withstand that scrutiny.”

Olson said if the Obama administration were to file a brief before the Supreme Court in the Prop 8 case, it would do so at about the same time it would file a brief in the DOMA case. The Justice Department has already filed briefs against DOMA in lower courts.

The Obama administration has thus far stayed out of the Prop 8 case. Asked in September by the Washington Blade whether the U.S. government would weigh in, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney had no comment and Nanda Chitre, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, said, “We are not a party to this litigation and would decline further comment.ā€

That might change now that the Supreme Court has taken up the case. Like other interested parties, the Justice Department will have an opportunity to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the upcoming days as the court accepts other briefs in the lawsuit.

The organization behind the lawsuit, the American Foundation for Equal Rights, held the conference call in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the Prop 8 case as well as one of the cases against the Defense of Marriage Act known as Windsor v. United States.

Olson was confident about a positive outcome for same-sex couples, saying the denial of their marriage rights will receive significant attention simply by being before the Supreme Court.

“We have an exhaustive record on which to build this case, and it will be an education for the American people,” Olson said. “We are very confident the outcome of this case will be to support the rights of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.”

David Boies, co-counsel in the lawsuit, said the decision of the Supreme Court to take up the case means only a short time remains before a final resolution is reached in the Prop 8 case.

“We are now literally within months of getting a final resolution of this case that began three-and-a-half years ago,” Boies said. “I think we are encouraged and excited about the prospect that we will finally get a decision on the merits with respect to marriage equality. This is a momentous case; I think the attention that it has already received by the Supreme Court indicates their recognition of the importance of this issue.”

Human Rights Campaign President ChadĀ Griffin, who co-founded AFER, also expressed excitement about the prospects of a victory at the Supreme Court on the conference call.

“Today is nothing short of a milestone moment, quite frankly, for equality,” Griffin said. “We are gratified that the court has taken this challenge to Prop 8. We should also mention the challenge to the ridiculously named Defense of Marriage Act. Millions of loving couples ā€” married and unmarried ā€” have been waiting for their day in court, and now they’re finally going to have it.”

Also taking part in the conference call were the two plaintiff couples in the case:Ā Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, who tried to obtain a marriage license inĀ Alameda County,Ā as well as Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami, who tried to obtain a marriage license in Los Angeles.

Had the Supreme Court decided not to take up Prop 8, a U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the measure would have been allowed to stand and same-sex marriage would have returned to California.

But plaintiffs in the case didn’t express disappointment. Asked whether she’s unhappy the Supreme Court took up the case, Perry replied, “You may find this a little surprising: the answer is ‘no’.”

“We’ve always been very patient and understanding of this process,” Perry said. “We always wanted the biggest, boldest outcome possible, and that can only happen if the Supreme Court listens to the case.”

Stier echoed those remarks, saying she feels “zero disappointment,” but instead hope that areas affected by discrimination other than in California will obtain relief as a result of the case.

Also during the conference call, Olson and Boies answered questions about the the Supreme Court’s request for additional briefings on whether opponents of Prop 8 have standing to defend the law in court. California state officials aren’t defending the law in court, and anti-gay groups have taken up defense of the anti-gay measure instead.

Olson said that question may present an opportunity for the Supreme Court to strike down Prop 8 on the grounds that anti-gay groups can’t defend the law in court as opposed to deciding the case on the merits. Such a ruling would abrogate a ruling against Prop 8 from the Ninth Circuit that allowed anti-gay groups and let stand a district court ruling against the measure.

“If the court were to decide this on standing as far as the Perry case is concerned, that would reinstate the 134-page opinion from District Judge Vaughn Walker, which decided all of the issues comprehensively in favor of the constitutional rights of marriage equality,” Olson said.

Asked by Buzzfeed’s Chris Geidner whether attorneys would actively argue that proponents of Prop 8 don’t have standing in court, Boies said that would indeed be the case.

“We will be making the standing argument,” Boies said. “We think the standing argument is strongly supported by existing Supreme Court precedent.”

The Prop 8 attorneys had previously filed a brief with the Supreme Court asking justices not to hear the case, but Olson said during the conference call his team has maintained at the same time that the lawsuit would be “the perfect vehicle” for deciding the right to marriage equality throughout the country.

“Gay and lesbians and all citizens have the right to have this issue … before the court with a fully developed record, with evidence on history, the importance of marriage, the damage done by discrimination and the fact that all Americans will benefit by the fact that people will be treated equally throughout this country to marry the person that they love,” Olson said.

In response to a question from The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein on whether opponents of Prop 8 would be better off if a ruling against DOMA came first, Olson denied sequencing would be a problem, saying, “We have never agreed with those concerns.”

“In short, the record is so complete that we have always felt that if the issue of marriage equality was going to be before the Supreme Court, the Proposition 8 Perry case should be a part of it because it has vastly more developed evidentiary record and specific thoughtful findings by a district judge who listened to all the evidence, and there was no evidence of any persuasive effect on the other side,” Olson said.

The opportunity for the court to hear the Prop 8 lawsuit means the Supreme Court may make a national ruling on same-sex marriage that affects not just California, but every state in the country with a ban on same-sex marriage.

Asked by The Advocate’s Julie Bolcer about scenarios in which a Supreme Court ruling might have an impact outside California, Boies said may justices may issue a ruling with larger reach depending on the way they examine the case.

Boies said if the Supreme Court addresses in its ruling the “fundamental merit” issue of whether discrimination against gays and lesbians is unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution, that ruling would mean “there would be a fundamental right to marry in every state in the country because obviously the federal Constitution applies to every state in the country.”

Still, Boies said the ruling would be limited to California if justices decide the case on same narrow ground as the Ninth Circuit or simply determine that proponents of Prop 8 don’t have standing to defend the law in court. Even so, Boies said such rulings would establish precedent that would have an impact on other marriage cases throughout the country.

NOTE: An additional quote from Olson was added to this piece following its initial publication that better reflected his confidence the Supreme Court would strike down Prop 8 on its merits.

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U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court declines to hear case over drag show at Texas university

Students argue First Amendment protects performance

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The U.S. Supreme Court justices on June 30, 2022. ((Photo by Fred Schilling of the U.S. Supreme Court)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear a First Amendment case over a public university president’s refusal to allow an LGBTQ student group to host a drag show on campus.

The group’s application was denied without the justices providing their reasoning or issuing dissenting opinions, as is custom for such requests for emergency review.

When plaintiffs sought to organize the drag performance to raise money for suicide prevention in March 2023, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler cancelled the event, citing the Bible and other religious texts.

The students sued, arguing the move constituted prior restraint and viewpoint-based discrimination, in violation of the First Amendment. Wendler had called drag shows ā€œderisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny,” adding that “a harmless drag show” was “not possible.”

The notoriously conservative Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who former President Donald Trump appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, ruled against the plaintiffs in September, writing that ā€œit is not clearly established that all drag shows are inherently expressive.”

Kacsmaryk further argued that the High Court’s precedent-setting opinions protecting stage performances and establishing that “speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend” was inconsistent with constitutional interpretation based on ā€œtext, history and tradition.”

Plaintiffs appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is by far the most conservative of the nation’s 12 appellate circuit courts. They sought emergency review by the Supreme Court because the 5th Circuit refused to fast-track their case, so arguments were scheduled to begin after the date of their drag show.

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Federal Government

EXCLUSIVE: USAID LGBTQ coordinator visits Uganda

Jay Gilliam met with activists, community members from Feb. 19-27

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U.S. Agency for International Development Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam (Photo courtesy of USAID)

U.S. Agency for International Development Senior LGBTQI+ Coordinator Jay Gilliam last month traveled to Uganda.

Gilliam was in the country from Feb. 19-27. He visited Kampala, the Ugandan capital, and the nearby city of Jinja.

Gilliam met with LGBTQ activists who discussed the impact of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, a law with a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality” that President Yoweri Museveni signed last May. Gilliam also sat down with USAID staffers.

Gilliam on Wednesday during an exclusive interview with the Washington Blade did not identify the specific activists and organizations with whom he met “out of protection.” 

“I really wanted to meet with community members and understand the impacts on them,” he said.

Consensual same-sex sexual relations in Uganda were already criminalized before Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act. Gilliam told the Blade he spoke with a person who said authorities arrested them at a community meeting for mental health and psychosocial support “under false pretenses of engaging in same-sex relations and caught in a video that purportedly showed him.” 

The person, according to Gilliam, said authorities outed them and drove them around the town in which they were arrested in order to humiliate them. Gilliam told the Blade that prisoners and guards beat them, subjected them to so-called anal exams and denied them access to antiretroviral drugs.

“They were told that you are not even a human being. From here on you are no longer living, just dead,” recalled Gilliam.

“I just can’t imagine how difficult it is for someone to be able to live through something like that and being released and having ongoing needs for personal security, having to be relocated and getting support for that and lots of other personal issues and trauma,” added Gilliam.

Gilliam said activists shared stories of landlords and hotel owners evicting LGBTQ people and advocacy groups from their properties. Gilliam told the Blade they “purport that they don’t want to run afoul of” the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

“These evictions really exacerbate the needs from the community in terms of relocation and temporary shelter and just the trauma of being kicked out of your home, being kicked out of your village and having to find a place to stay at a moment’s notice, knowing that you’re also trying to escape harm and harassment from neighbors and community members,” he said.

Gilliam also noted the Anti-Homosexuality Act has impacted community members in different ways.

Reported cases of violence and eviction, for example, are higher among gay men and transgender women. Gilliam noted lesbian, bisexual and queer women and trans men face intimate partner violence, are forced into marriages, endure corrective rape and lose custody of their children when they are outed. He said these community members are also unable to inherit land, cannot control their own finances and face employment discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.Ā Ā 

US sanctioned Ugandan officials over Anti-Homosexuality Act

The U.SĀ imposed visa restrictionsĀ on Ugandan officials shortly after Museveni signed the law. The World Bank Group later announcedĀ the suspension of new loansĀ to Uganda.

The Biden-Harris administration last October issued a business advisory that said the Anti-Homosexuality Act ā€œfurther increases restrictions on human rights, to include restrictions on freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly and exacerbates issues regarding the respect for leases and employment contracts.ā€ The White House has also removed Uganda from a program that allows sub-Saharan African countries to trade duty-free with the U.S. and has issued a business advisory for the country over the Anti-Homosexuality Act. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Dec. 4, 2023, announced sanctions against current and former Ugandan officials who committed human rights abuses against LGBTQ people and other groups. Media reports this week indicate the U.S. denied MP Sarah Achieng Opendi a visa that would have allowed her to travel to New York in order to attend the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women.

Museveni, for his part, has criticized the U.S. and other Western countries’ response to the Anti-Homosexuality Act. 

Gilliam noted authorities have arrested and charged Ugandans under the law.Ā 

Two men on motorcycles on Jan. 3 stabbed Steven Kabuye, co-executive director of Coloured Voice Truth to LGBTQ Uganda, outside his home while he was going to work. The incident took place months after Museveni attended Uganda’s National Prayer Breakfast at which U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) spoke and defended the Anti-Homosexuality Act.

The State Department condemned the attack that Kabuye blamed on politicians and religious leaders who are stoking anti-LGBTQ sentiments in Uganda. Gilliam did not meet with Ugandan government officials while he was in the country.

“We in the U.S. government have already made it clear our stance with government officials on how we feel about the AHA, as well as broader human rights concerns in country,” said Gilliam. “That’s been communicated from the very highest levels.”

The Uganda’s Constitutional Court last Dec. 18 heard arguments in a lawsuit that challenges the Anti-Homosexuality Act. It is unclear when a ruling in the case will take place, but Gilliam said LGBTQ Ugandans with whom he met described the law “as just one moment.” 

“Obviously there is lots of work that has been done, that continues to be done to respond to this moment,” he told the Blade. “They know that there’s going to be a lot of work that needs to continue to really address a lot of the root causes and to really back humanity to the community.” 

Gilliam further noted it will “take some years to recover from the damage of 2023 and the AHA (Anti-Homosexuality Act) there.” He added activists are “already laying down the groundwork for what that work looks like” in terms of finding MPs, religious leaders, human rights activists and family members who may become allies.

“Those types of allyships are going to be key to building back the community and to continue the resiliency of the movement,” said Gilliam.

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Texas

Pornhub blocks Texas accessing site over age verification law

Court battle forced statute to take effect

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Washingtonporn Blade graphic

Aylo (formerly MindGeek) the largest global adult online entertainment conglomerate, owned by Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners, has restricted access to its platforms including its flagship Pornhub in Texas after a court battle forces the state’s age verification law to take effect.

Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton had appealed a U.S. District Court decision that enjoined him from enforcing House Bill 1181. Paxton and others argued that purveyors of obscene materials online needed to institute reasonable age-verification measures to safeguard children from pornography.Ā 

A week ago the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially vacated the original injunction, ruling that the age verification requirements are constitutional.Ā 

ā€œApplying rational-basis review, the age-verification requirement is rationally related to the governmentā€™s legitimate interest in preventing minorsā€™ access to pornography,ā€ the three judge panel of the 5th Circuit explained. ā€œTherefore, the age-verification requirement does not violate the First Amendment.ā€

While the court vacated the injunction against the age-verification requirement of the statute, it upheld the lower courtā€™s injunction against a separate section of the law that would require pornography websites to display a health warning on their landing page and all advertisements. 

Texas users are greeted with this notice.

The Houston Chronicle reported people who go to the site are now greeted with a long message from the company railing against the legal change as ā€œineffective, haphazard, and dangerous.ā€ The company calls for age verification by the makers of devices that let people on the internet, instead of individual websites.

Age verification legislation was enacted in several states in 2023 in addition to Texas, including North Carolina, Montana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Utah and Virginia.

The new laws require users to provide digital confirmation via a certified approved third party vendor like London-based digital identity company Yoti. The other possibility would be a state approved digital ID such as the California DMVā€™s Wallet app, which contains a mobile driverā€™s license.

Users accessing Pornhub from within Louisiana are presented with a different webpage that directs them to verify their age with the stateā€™s digital ID system, known as LA Wallet. The law passed in 2022 subjects adult websites to damage lawsuits and state civil penalties as high as $5,000 a day if they fail to verify that users are at least 18 years old by requiring the use of digitized, state-issued driverā€™s licenses or other methods.

The Associated Press reported this past October that an adult entertainment groupā€™s lawsuit against a Louisiana law requiring sexually explicit websites to verify the ages of their viewers was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan in New Orleans.

Texas users are greeted with this notice.

Potential or existing Pornhub users in North Carolina and Montana are directed to a video that features adult film star Cherie DeVille, who recites a message also written under the video.

ā€œAs you may know, your elected officials in your state are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website. While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.ā€

ā€œMandating age verification without proper enforcement gives platforms the opportunity to choose whether or not to comply,ā€ the statement continues. ā€œAs weā€™ve seen in other states, this just drives traffic to sites with far fewer safety measures in place.ā€

ā€œUntil a real solution is offered, we have made the difficult decision to completely disable access to our website in [the aforementioned locales]ā€ the message ends with.

The company previously blocked Utah on May 7, 2023. CNN reported at the time:

Affected users are shown a message expressing opposition toĀ Senate Bill 287, the Utah law signed by Gov. Spencer Cox in March that creates liability for porn sites that make their content available to people below the age of 18.

ā€œAs you may know, your elected officials in Utah are requiring us to verify your age before allowing you access to our website,ā€ the message said. ā€œWhile safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at risk.ā€

Courthouse News reportedĀ that after Virginiaā€™s bill was passed in June, state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, a Democrat, criticized the state for not creating a system for age verification, and instead leaving it up to websites to manage the process, citing security risks.Ā Ā 

ā€œWe passed a bill during this session to protect children from online porn. However the executive branch had an obligation to create a system for age verification,ā€Ā Lucas saidĀ on X, formerly Twitter. ā€œWe will continue our work to keep pornography out of the hands of minors ā€¦ but we will also work to ensure that this Governorā€™s error does not put the privacy of Virginians at further risk.ā€

Beyond the U.S. in the European Union, Pornhub and two more of the worldā€™s biggest porn websites face new requirements in the European Union that include verifying the ages of users, under the EUā€™s Digital Services Act.

According to a December 20 report from the Associated Press, Pornhub, XVideos and Stripchat have now been classed as ā€œvery large online platformsā€ subject to more stringent controls under the Digital Services Act because they each have 45 million average monthly users, according to the European Commission, the EUā€™s executive branch.

They are the first porn sites to be targeted by the sweeping Digital Services Act, which imposes tough obligations to keep users safe from illegal content and dodgy products, the Associated Press reported last month.

In addition to the adult entertainment websites, any violations are punishable by fines of up to 6% of global revenue or even a ban on operating in the EU. Some 19 online platforms and search engines have already been identified for stricter scrutiny under the DSA, including TikTok, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, Google and more.

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