National
Calif. AG: Prop 8 case is about ‘fundamental notions of justice’
Kamala Harris declined to defend state’s same-sex marriage ban
National Council of La Raza honored California Attorney General Kamala Harris in D.C. on March 5. (Photo courtesy of National Council of La Raza)
California Attorney General Kamala Harris told the Washington Blade on Tuesday she feels the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold two previous rulings that found her state’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional.
“I think it went well,” she said after the justices heard oral arguments in the Proposition 8 case. “It was clear that this is a case that is about fundamental notions of justice and equality and liberty.”
Harris, who declined to defend Prop 8 after her 2010 election, said the Supreme Court has described marriage “as a fundamental right” 14 times since the 1880s. She added she feels the justices’ questions effectively discredited the proponents’ arguments in support of the same-sex marriage ban that California voters approved in 2008.
“The conversation that was had about the significance of procreation, especially through [Justice Elena] Kagan’s questions highlighted the fact that that’s probably the most bogus distinction that is being offered by the proponents,” Harris said. “On the issue of standing, it’s certainly been our position that Mr. [Dennis] Hollingsworth [of Protect Marriage] has no standing in that there’s no direct harm that would result to him from allowing Ms. [Kristin] Perry to be married to her partner of 16 years with whom she shares a child.”
Harris also discussed comparisons same-sex marriage supporters, legal scholars and others have made between the Prop 8 and Defense of Marriage Act cases and the Supreme Court’s landmark Loving v. Virginia decision that struck down remaining state interracial marriage bans in 1967.
“It was one of those 14 cases that outlined the fact that marriage is a fundamental right,” she said. “It also outlined the fact that government should not interfere with the freedom to marry. And it articulated that the 14th Amendment means having an equal right to the sanctity of marriage.”
Harris further reiterated her point.
“You cannot hold up people’s fundamental constitutional rights,” she said. “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
A poll conducted on behalf of San Francisco television station KPIX between March 22-24 found 67 percent of Californians back marriage rights for same-sex couples. Fifty-two percent of respondents said the Supreme Court should uphold two lower court rulings that found Prop 8 unconstitutional.
A Field Poll last month found 61 percent of Californians approve marriage rights for same-sex couples.
“More important than reading the polls is reading the Constitution,” Harris said in response to a question about whether she feels increased public support of marriage rights for same-sex couples could potentially influence the justices. “That reading should direct the court to protect these same-sex couples’ right to marry.”
She acknowledged abortion remains a controversial issue more than 40 years after the Supreme Court issued its Roe v. Wade decision. Harris pointed out that interracial marriages are no longer contentious in this country.
“It’s not only about polls,” she said, noting President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Clinton are among those who have publicly backed same-sex marriage. “Republican leaders have come out. Fortune 500 leaders, athletes have all come out saying they’re in favor of this. Of what? In favor of not denying people a constitutional right and that’s really is the issue here. We should not be standing in the way of fellow citizens’ equal rights.”
Harris also responded to the Blade’s question about Justice Antonin Scalia’s repeated use of male pronouns to refer to her during the oral arguments.
“He obviously got my gender wrong,” she joked. “But he certainly got the position correct, which is that we are arguing for the court to do the right thing and decide the issue and decide that the Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.”
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
The White House
Trump travels to Middle East countries with death penalty for homosexuality
President traveled to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates
Homosexuality remains punishable by death in two of the three Middle East countries that President Donald Trump visited last week.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the handful of countries in which anyone found guilty of engaging in consensual same-sex sexual relations could face the death penalty.
Trump was in Saudi Arabia from May 13-14. He traveled to Qatar on May 14.
“The law prohibited consensual same-sex sexual conduct between men but did not explicitly prohibit same-sex sexual relations between women,” notes the State Department’s 2023 human rights report, referring specifically to Qatar’s criminalization law. “The law was not systematically enforced. A man convicted of having consensual same-sex sexual relations could receive a sentence of seven years in prison. Under sharia, homosexuality was punishable by death; there were no reports of executions for this reason.”
Trump on May 15 arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The State Department’s 2023 human rights report notes the “penalty for individuals who engaged in ‘consensual sodomy with a man'” in the country “was a minimum prison sentence of six months if the individual’s partner or guardian filed a complaint.”
“There were no known reports of arrests or prosecutions for consensual same-sex sexual conduct. LGBTQI+ identity, real or perceived, could be deemed an act against ‘decency or public morality,’ but there were no reports during the year of persons prosecuted under these provisions,” reads the report.
The report notes Emirati law also criminalizes “men who dressed as women or entered a place designated for women while ‘disguised’ as a woman.” Anyone found guilty could face up to a year in prison and a fine of up to 10,000 dirhams ($2,722.60.)
Trump returned to the U.S. on May 16.
The White House notes Trump during the trip secured more than $2 trillion “in investment agreements with Middle Eastern nations ($200 billion with the United Arab Emirates, $600 billion with Saudi Arabia, and $1.2 trillion with Qatar) for a more safe and prosperous future.”
Former President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2022.
Saudi Arabia is scheduled to host the 2034 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar.
State Department
Rubio mum on Hungary’s Pride ban
Lawmakers on April 30 urged secretary of state to condemn anti-LGBTQ bill, constitutional amendment
More than 20 members of Congress have urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to publicly condemn a Hungarian law that bans Pride events.
California Congressman Mark Takano, a Democrat who co-chairs the Congressional Equality Caucus, and U.S. Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.), who is the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Europe Subcommittee, spearheaded the letter that lawmakers sent to Rubio on April 30.
Hungarian lawmakers in March passed a bill that bans Pride events and allow authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs last month amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
“As a NATO ally which hosts U.S. service members, we expect the Hungarian government to abide by certain values which underpin the historic U.S.-Hungary bilateral relationship,” reads the letter. “Unfortunately, this new legislation and constitutional amendment disproportionately and arbitrarily target sexual and gender minorities.”
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government over the last decade has moved to curtail LGBTQ and intersex rights in Hungary.
A law that bans legal recognition of transgender and intersex people took effect in 2020. Hungarian MPs that year also effectively banned same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the constitution as between a man and a woman.
An anti-LGBTQ propaganda law took effect in 2021. The European Commission sued Hungary, which is a member of the European Union, over it.
MPs in 2023 approved the “snitch on your gay neighbor” bill that would have allowed Hungarians to anonymously report same-sex couples who are raising children. The Budapest Metropolitan Government Office in 2023 fined Lira Konyv, the country’s second-largest bookstore chain, 12 million forints ($33,733.67), for selling copies of British author Alice Oseman’s “Heartstopper.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who is gay, participated in the Budapest Pride march in 2024 and 2023. Pressman was also a vocal critic of Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
“Along with years of democratic backsliding in Hungary, it flies in the face of those values and the passage of this legislation deserves quick and decisive criticism and action in response by the Department of State,” reads the letter, referring to the Pride ban and constitutional amendment against public LGBTQ events. “Therefore, we strongly urge you to publicly condemn this legislation and constitutional change which targets the LGBTQ community and undermines the rights of Hungarians to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.”
U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sarah McBride (D-Del.), Jim Costa (D-Calif.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Summer Lee (D-Pa.), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Julie Johnson (D-Texas), Ami Bera (D-Calif.), Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), Dina Titus (D-Nev.), Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) signed the letter alongside Takano and Keating.
A State Department spokesperson on Wednesday declined to comment.
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill to criminalize gender affirming care advances
Delaware considers enshrining same-sex marriage into state Constitution
Returning to Alcatraz: Memory through a queer lens
PHOTOS: Equality Prince William Pride
Chilean lawmakers back report that calls for suspension of program for trans children
Ashley Biden to speak at Blade’s Summer Kickoff Party in Rehoboth Beach
Pete Buttigieg, eyeing a presidential run, holds Iowa town hall
Calendar: May 16-22
Documentary about Blade reporter to premiere this month
