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Lawsuit challenges Alabama same-sex marriage ban

Case brought on behalf of gay widower

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David Fancher, Paul Hard, SPLC, Southern Poverty Law Center, Alabama, gay marriage, same-sex marriage, marriage equality, gay news, Washington Blade
David Fancher, Paul Hard, SPLC, Southern Poverty Law Center, Alabama, gay marriage, same-sex marriage, marriage equality, gay news, Washington Blade

David Fancher (on left) and Paul Hard at their wedding. (Photo courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center)

The Southern Poverty Law Center on Thursday filed a federal lawsuit that challenges Alabama’s same-sex marriage ban.

The organization, which is based in Montgomery, Ala., brought the case on behalf of Paul Hard, who married Charles David Fancher in Massachusetts in May 2011. Fancher died in a car accident less than three months later after he hit an overturned UPS truck on I-65 outside of Montgomery – a wrongful death lawsuit was later filed in his name.

Alabama law says a surviving spouse is entitled to receive the majority of any settlement money, but the state does not recognize Hard and Fancher’s wedding because voters in 2006 overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

“They create two, unequal, classes of married couples living in the State of Alabama: those married couples who enjoy all the protections afforded to people who are married, including the right of a surviving spouse to recover proceeds in a wrongful death action, and those married couples, like Paul and David, who do not,” reads the lawsuit. “The obvious purpose of the Sanctity Laws is to punish and demean citizens who have entered one type of marriage, but not the other.

Alabama is among the 32 states that ban same-sex marriage.

Out state Rep. Patricia Todd (D-Birmingham), who married her long-time partner in Massachusetts in 2013, last November introduced a bill that would have repealed Alabama’s gay nuptials ban.

Six gay and lesbian couples in neighboring Florida last month filed a lawsuit challenging their state’s same-sex marriage ban.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Missouri on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in state court on behalf of eight same-sex couples who are seeking recognition of their marriages legally performed in other jurisdictions. The Forum for Equality Louisiana on the same day filed an identical lawsuit in a federal court in New Orleans on behalf of four gay and lesbian couples who legally married outside the Pelican State.

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled Kentucky must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in other jurisdictions.

A judge last month found Oklahoma’s gay nuptials ban unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court less than two weeks earlier blocked any future same-sex marriages from taking place in Utah pending the outcome of an appeal of U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby’s December ruling that struck down the state’s gay nuptials ban.

Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto on Feb. 10 announced she will no longer defend her state’s same-sex marriage ban in court.

A ruling in a federal lawsuit that challenges Virginia’s gay nuptials ban is expected in the coming days.

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore last week urged all 50 state governors to allow their legislatures to call for a convention to ratify an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as “the union of one man and one woman.” Gov. Robert Bentley last September said he would not allow the Alabama National Guard to extend benefits to members’ same-sex partners in spite of a directive the Pentagon issued after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.

“The moral foundation of our country is under attack,” Moore told the Associated Press.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Feb. 10 announced the Justice Department will now recognize same-sex marriages in civil and criminal cases and extend full benefits to gay spouses of police officers and other public safety personnel killed while on duty. This new policy applies to Alabama and the 31 other states that currently do not recognize same-sex marriage.

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New York

Two teens shot steps from Stonewall Inn after NYC Pride parade

One of the victims remains in critical condition

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The Stonewall National Memorial in New York on June 19, 2024. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

On Sunday night, following the annual NYC Pride March, two girls were shot in Sheridan Square, feet away from the historic Stonewall Inn.

According to an NYPD report, the two girls, aged 16 and 17, were shot around 10:15 p.m. as Pride festivities began to wind down. The 16-year-old was struck in the head and, according to police sources, is said to be in critical condition, while the 17-year-old was said to be in stable condition.

The Washington Blade confirmed with the NYPD the details from the police reports and learned no arrests had been made as of noon Monday.

The shooting took place in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, mere feet away from the most famous gay bar in the city — if not the world — the Stonewall Inn. Earlier that day, hundreds of thousands of people marched down Christopher Street to celebrate 55 years of LGBTQ people standing up for their rights.

In June 1969, after police raided the Stonewall Inn, members of the LGBTQ community pushed back, sparking what became known as the Stonewall riots. Over the course of two days, LGBTQ New Yorkers protested the discriminatory policing of queer spaces across the city and mobilized to speak out — and throw bottles if need be — at officers attempting to suppress their existence.

The following year, LGBTQ people returned to the Stonewall Inn and marched through the same streets where queer New Yorkers had been arrested, marking the first “Gay Pride March” in history and declaring that LGBTQ people were not going anywhere.

New York State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, whose district includes Greenwich Village, took to social media to comment on the shooting.

“After decades of peaceful Pride celebrations — this year gun fire and two people shot near the Stonewall Inn is a reminder that gun violence is everywhere,” the lesbian lawmaker said on X. “Guns are a problem despite the NRA BS.”

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New York

Zohran Mamdani participates in NYC Pride parade

Mayoral candidate has detailed LGBTQ rights platform

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NYC mayoral candidate and New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani (Screen capture: NBC News/YouTube)

Zohran Mamdani, the candidate for mayor of New York City who pulled a surprise victory in the primary contest last week, walked in the city’s Pride parade on Sunday.

The Democratic Socialist and New York State Assembly member published photos on social media with New York Attorney General Letitia James, telling followers it was “a joy to march in NYC Pride with the people’s champ” and to “see so many friends on this gorgeous day.”

“Happy Pride NYC,” he wrote, adding a rainbow emoji.

Mamdani’s platform includes a detailed plan for LGBTQ people who “across the United States are facing an increasingly hostile political environment.”

His campaign website explains: “New York City must be a refuge for LGBTQIA+ people, but private institutions in our own city have already started capitulating to Trump’s assault on trans rights.

“Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis confronting working class people across the city hits the LGBTQIA+ community particularly hard, with higher rates of unemployment and homelessness than the rest of the city.”

“The Mamdani administration will protect LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers by expanding and protecting gender-affirming care citywide, making NYC an LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city, and creating the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs.”

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U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court upholds ACA rule that makes PrEP, other preventative care free

Liberal justices joined three conservatives in majority opinion

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The U.S. Supreme Court as composed June 30, 2022, to present. Front row, left to right: Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Back row, left to right: Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Photo Credit: Fred Schilling, the U.S. Supreme Court)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a portion of the Affordable Care Act requiring private health insurers to cover the cost of preventative care including PrEP, which significantly reduces the risk of transmitting HIV.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the majority opinion in the case, Kennedy v. Braidwood Management. He was joined by two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, along with the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown-Jackson.

The court’s decision rejected the plaintiffs’ challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s reliance on the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force to “unilaterally” determine which types of care and services must be covered by payors without cost-sharing.

An independent all-volunteer panel of nationally recognized experts in prevention and primary care, the 16 task force members are selected by the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to serve four-year terms.

They are responsible for evaluating the efficacy of counseling, screenings for diseases like cancer and diabetes, and preventative medicines — like Truvada for PrEP, drugs to reduce heart disease and strokes, and eye ointment for newborns to prevent infections.

Parties bringing the challenge objected especially to the mandatory coverage of PrEP, with some arguing the drugs would “encourage and facilitate homosexual behavior” against their religious beliefs.

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