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EXCLUSIVE: Travel industry representatives meet with Caribbean LGBT advocates

Gathering took place in Miami on Sept. 19

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Puerto Rico gay marriage, gay news, Washington Blade
Dane Lewis, Jamaica, Jamaica Forum for Lesbians All-Sexuals & Gays, gay news, Washington Blade

Dane Lewis, executive director of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays, is among the Caribbean LGBT advocates who met with travel industry representatives in Miami on Sept. 19. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Travel industry representatives last week met with a group of Caribbean LGBT rights activists to discuss ways they can support advocacy efforts in the region.

Out Think Partners organized the Sept. 19 meeting that took place at Celebrity Cruisesā€™ Miami headquarters on behalf of the Kevin J. Mossier Foundation, which RSVP Vacations founder Kevin J. Mossier founded to support LGBT rights efforts in the U.S. and around the world.

Representatives from Marriott, Club Med, Cruise Planners and Silver Sea Cruises are among those who took part in the gathering. Advocates from the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, Dominica, St. Lucia, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Belize gave presentations about the state of LGBT rights in their respective countries.

Officials from the State Department also took part.

ā€œWe discussed what is the real situation for LGBT persons who live on these islands and who live in the Caribbean,ā€ Maria Fontenelle of United and Strong, a St. Lucian LGBT advocacy group, told the Washington Blade. ā€œThat is the main thing the Caribbean participants brought to the table.ā€

Dane Lewis, executive director of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays, said he and others who took part in the meeting discussed ways the travel industry could support Caribbean LGBT advocacy efforts. These include the possibility of companies hosting events at their resorts and on their cruise ships and providing their guests with opportunities to meet local LGBT advocates while they are visiting a particular country.

ā€œThe meeting with travel leaders was an excellent idea,ā€ Lewis told the Blade. ā€œ[It was] a well-needed first conversation about ways to collaborate.ā€

Sylvester Jno. Baptiste of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Partnership of Dominica agreed.

ā€œIt was a very interesting meeting, something that was needed in terms of getting the view from the Caribbean,ā€ he said. ā€œIt also gave me hope of more can be done.ā€

Out Think Partners President Steve Roth also described the meeting as positive.

ā€œ[We] certainly [wanted] to take the focus of what the travel industry could do to help advance equality for LGBT people,ā€ he told the Blade on Tuesday.

ā€™Things are very difficult in the Caribbeanā€™

Consensual same-sex sexual acts remain criminalized in Dominica, Jamaica, Belize, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago.

Javed Jaghai, a Jamaican gay rights advocate, last month withdrew his lawsuit against his countryā€™s anti-sodomy law because of concerns over his personal safety and that of his family. The United Belize Advocacy Movement, a Belizean HIV/AIDS advocacy group, in 2010 challenged the Central American countryā€™s law that criminalizes homosexuality.

Anti-LGBT violence remains pervasive throughout the region.

A report from the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals and Gays notes at least 30 gay men were murdered on the island between 1997 and 2004.

A man stabbed Brian Williamson, who co-founded the Jamaican LGBT advocacy group, to death inside his home in Kingston, the country’s capital, in 2004. A group of partygoers outside Montego Bay in July 2013 killed Dwayne Jones after they discovered the teenager was cross-dressing.

The murder of gay Puerto Rican teenager Jorge Steven LĆ³pez Mercado in late 2009 underscored what local advocates argued was endemic anti-LGBT violence and discrimination in the U.S. commonwealth. A man in Dominica was stabbed to death in 2010 because he was reportedly ā€œwatchingā€ his killer in a public place.

Several people in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince in August 2013 were reportedly injured after a mob attacked a British man and his partner as they celebrated their engagement. Bahamian LGBT rights advocates earlier this month cancelled a Pride event on the island of Grand Bahama because of vocal opposition from local religious leaders.

Lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute have advised the group defending Belizeā€™s anti-sodomy law, according to a 2013 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Anti-LGBT evangelicals from the U.S. have also traveled to Jamaica to support those who oppose efforts to decriminalize homosexuality on the island.

ā€œThings are very difficult in the Caribbean,ā€ Suzanne Gomez-Ferdinandus, a member of a Trinidadian LGBT advocacy group who attended the Miami meeting, told the Blade. ā€œItā€™s very hard to get our governments to open the doors to change.ā€

Ron Gulaskey of Celebrity Cruises told the Blade during a telephone interview from Miami on Monday that he was ā€œhorrifiedā€ to hear the advocatesā€™ stories of discrimination and violence in their respective countries.

ā€œI had no idea,ā€ said Gulaskey, who is straight. ā€œIn the U.S., especially living in South Florida, I was under the impression there wasnā€™t these issues. I was just horrified.ā€

LGBT issues gain some traction in region

The Cayman Islands in 1998 refused to allow a cruise ship with 900 gay passengers to dock. Religious officials in the British territory in 2010 pressured local authorities to prohibit an Atlantis Events vessel from visiting the islands.

Authorities in Dominica in 2012 arrested two men who were reportedly seen having sex on a Celebrity Cruises ship as it docked in Roseau, the countryā€™s capital.

Religious groups in the Bahamas, Jamaica and Grenada have also spoken out against gay and lesbian cruise ships that seek to visit their respective countries.

Caribbean advocates with whom the Blade has recently spoken were quick to note LGBT rights have gained some traction in recent years in spite of these controversial incidents

Same-sex couples can legally marry in Martinique, Guadeloupe, St. Martin and St. Barthelemy and the Caribbean Netherlands that include Bonaire, Saba and St. Eustatius.

Mariela Castro, Cuba, gay news, Washington Blade

Mariela Castro has been credited with spearheading the Cuban government’s efforts to reduce HIV/AIDS rates in the Communist country. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban President RaĆŗl Castro, has spoken out in support of marriage rights for gays and lesbians. Judi Buckley, a senator in the U.S. Virgin Islands, in May introduced a bill that would allow gays and lesbians to tie the knot in the American territory.

Two women earlier this year filed a federal lawsuit seeking recognition of their Massachusetts marriage in Puerto Rico. Four other same-sex couples; Lambda Legal and Puerto Rico Para Tod@s, a Puerto Rican LGBT advocacy group, joined the case in June.

Maite Oronoz RodrĆ­guez in July became the first openly LGBT judge to sit on the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. Gay U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic James ā€œWallyā€ Brewster has been in his post since late last year in spite of vocal opposition from the countryā€™s religious leaders.

Cuban lawmakers late last year approved a proposal that would amend the countryā€™s labor law to ban anti-gay employment discrimination. Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro GarcĆ­a Padilla in May 2013 signed into law two bills that banned anti-LGBT discrimination and added gender identity and expression to the U.S. commonwealthā€™s domestic violence laws.

Trinidadian lawmakers and other officials were among those who attended an April reception with Dennis and Judy Shepard that took place in the countryā€™s capital of Port of Spain. Jowelle Taylor de Souza, a trans Trinidadian woman, last month announced she will run in the countryā€™s parliamentary elections.

Belizean First Lady Kim Simplis-Barrow last year spoke out against anti-gay discrimination and violence in a video that commemorated the annual International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller pledged during her 2011 election campaign that her government would review her countryā€™s anti-sodomy law. She also said she would call for a so-called conscience vote that would allow parliamentarians to consult with their constituents on the issue.

Such a vote has yet to take place.

ā€™Engaged tourismā€™ creates LGBT visibility in Caribbean

The majority of Caribbean economies remain highly dependent upon tourism. The International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association estimates LGBT tourists have a global spending power of more than $140 billion.

The Curacao Tourism Board in 2007 launched the Caribbeanā€™s first LGBT-specific tourism marketing campaign.

Advocates with whom the Blade spoke said boycotts of Caribbean countries over their LGBT rights records would actually further antagonize those who oppose them and their efforts. They also concluded those who work within the tourism industry would suffer.

ā€œTheir reaction could easily be one that further isolates LGBT folks, saying well now Iā€™m losing my job or Iā€™m missing out on my salary because of you and because the U.S. thinks that youā€™re so important,ā€ Malaika Brooks-Smith-Lowe of Groundation Grenada, a Grenadian human rights organization, told the Blade. ā€œIā€™m not sure that that is the most useful approach.ā€

ā€œThe one thing our region has in abundance is natural resources,ā€ added Fontenelle. ā€œItā€™s something that other people in other regions may not have access to. We want to be able to give them access to it.ā€

Brooks-Smith-Lowe stressed the importance of what she described as ā€œmore meaningfulā€ and ā€œmore engaged tourism,ā€ referring to a lesbian couple from Aruba and the Netherlands who recently conducted writing and visual arts workshops in Grenada while visiting the island.

ā€œThat was so powerful for people,ā€ said Brooks-Smith-Lowe. ā€œIt creates visibility in a way that allows us to see that we really are missing out on whole segments of our population and the world if we just totally dismiss queer individuals.ā€

Those who organized the meeting said they hope to hold future gatherings on how the travel industry can further support LGBT advocacy efforts in the Caribbean.

ā€œThe idea was to really kickstart a dialogue and to start building relationships between these two worlds,ā€ said Roth. ā€œAnd from there to create a platform to start finding ways to potentially collaborate.ā€

San Juan, Puerto Rico, International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, gay news, Washington Blade

Marchers carry a Pride flag and crosses with the word “discrimination” during an LGBT rights march in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on May 17, 2013. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

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Honoring the legacy of New Orleansā€™ 1973 UpStairs Lounge fire

Why the arson attack that killed 32 gay men still resonates 50 years later

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Fifty years ago this week, 32 gay men were killed in an arson attack on the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans. (Photo by G.E. Arnold/Times-Picayune; reprinted with permission)

On June 23 of last year, I held the microphone as a gay man in the New Orleans City Council Chamber and related a lost piece of queer history to the seven council members. I told this story to disabuse all New Orleanians of the notion that silence and accommodation, in the face of institutional and official failures, are a path to healing.  

The story I related to them began on a typical Sunday night at a second-story bar on the fringe of New Orleansā€™ French Quarter in 1973, where working-class men would gather around a white baby grand piano and belt out the lyrics to a song that was the anthem of their hidden community, ā€œUnited We Standā€ by the Brotherhood of Man. 

ā€œUnited we stand,ā€ the men would sing together, ā€œdivided we fallā€ ā€” the words epitomizing the ethos of their beloved UpStairs Lounge bar, an egalitarian free space that served as a forerunner to todayā€™s queer safe havens. 

Around that piano in the 1970s Deep South, gays and lesbians, white and Black queens, Christians and non-Christians, and even early gender minorities could cast aside the racism, sexism, and homophobia of the times to find acceptance and companionship for a moment. 

For regulars, the UpStairs Lounge was a miracle, a small pocket of acceptance in a broader world where their very identities were illegal. 

On the Sunday night of June 24, 1973, their voices were silenced in a murderous act of arson that claimed 32 lives and still stands as the deadliest fire in New Orleans history ā€” and the worst mass killing of gays in 20th century America. 

As 13 fire companies struggled to douse the inferno, police refused to question the chief suspect, even though gay witnesses identified and brought the soot-covered man to officers idly standing by. This suspect, an internally conflicted gay-for-pay sex worker named Rodger Dale Nunez, had been ejected from the UpStairs Lounge screaming the word “burn” minutes before, but New Orleans police rebuffed the testimony of fire survivors on the street and allowed Nunez to disappear.

As the fire raged, police denigrated the deceased to reporters on the street: ā€œSome thieves hung out there, and you know this was a queer bar.ā€ 

For days afterward, the carnage met with official silence. With no local gay political leaders willing to step forward, national Gay Liberation-era figures like Rev. Troy Perry of the Metropolitan Community Church flew in to ā€œhelp our bereaved brothers and sistersā€ ā€” and shatter officialdomā€™s code of silence. 

Perry broke local taboos by holding a press conference as an openly gay man. ā€œItā€™s high time that you people, in New Orleans, Louisiana, got the message and joined the rest of the Union,ā€ Perry said. 

Two days later, on June 26, 1973, as families hesitated to step forward to identify their kin in the morgue, UpStairs Lounge owner Phil Esteve stood in his badly charred bar, the air still foul with death. He rebuffed attempts by Perry to turn the fire into a call for visibility and progress for homosexuals. 

ā€œThis fire had very little to do with the gay movement or with anything gay,ā€ Esteve told a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer. ā€œI do not want my bar or this tragedy to be used to further any of their causes.ā€ 

Conspicuously, no photos of Esteve appeared in coverage of the UpStairs Lounge fire or its aftermath ā€” and the bar owner also remained silent as he witnessed police looting the ashes of his business. 

ā€œPhil said the cash register, juke box, cigarette machine and some wallets had money removed,ā€ recounted Esteveā€™s friend Bob McAnear, a former U.S. Customs officer. ā€œPhil wouldnā€™t report it because, if he did, police would never allow him to operate a bar in New Orleans again.ā€ 

The next day, gay bar owners, incensed at declining gay bar traffic amid an atmosphere of anxiety, confronted Perry at a clandestine meeting. ā€œHow dare you hold your damn news conferences!ā€ one business owner shouted. 

Ignoring calls for gay self-censorship, Perry held a 250-person memorial for the fire victims the following Sunday, July 1, culminating in mourners defiantly marching out the front door of a French Quarter church into waiting news cameras. ā€œReverend Troy Perry awoke several sleeping giants, me being one of them,ā€ recalled Charlene Schneider, a lesbian activist who walked out of that front door with Perry.

(Photo by G.E. Arnold/Times-Picayune; reprinted with permission)

Esteve doubted the UpStairs Lounge storyā€™s capacity to rouse gay political fervor. As the coroner buried four of his former patrons anonymously on the edge of town, Esteve quietly collected at least $25,000 in fire insurance proceeds. Less than a year later, he used the money to open another gay bar called the Post Office, where patrons of the UpStairs Lounge ā€” some with visible burn scars ā€” gathered but were discouraged from singing ā€œUnited We Stand.ā€ 

New Orleans cops neglected to question the chief arson suspect and closed the investigation without answers in late August 1973. Gay elites in the cityā€™s power structure began gaslighting the mourners who marched with Perry into the news cameras, casting suspicion on their memories and re-characterizing their moment of liberation as a stunt. 

When a local gay journalist asked in April 1977, ā€œWhere are the gay activists in New Orleans?,ā€ Esteve responded that there were none, because none were needed. ā€œWe donā€™t feel weā€™re discriminated against,ā€ Esteve said. ā€œNew Orleans gays are different from gays anywhere elseā€¦ Perhaps there is some correlation between the amount of gay activism in other cities and the degree of police harassment.ā€ 

(Photo by H.J. Patterson/Times-Picayune; reprinted with permission)

An attitude of nihilism and disavowal descended upon the memory of the UpStairs Lounge victims, goaded by Esteve and fellow gay entrepreneurs who earned their keep via gay patrons drowning their sorrows each night instead of protesting the injustices that kept them drinking. 

Into the 1980s, the story of the UpStairs Lounge all but vanished from conversation ā€” with the exception of a few sanctuaries for gay political debate such as the local lesbian bar Charleneā€™s, run by the activist Charlene Schneider. 

By 1988, the 15th anniversary of the fire, the UpStairs Lounge narrative comprised little more than a call for better fire codes and indoor sprinklers. UpStairs Lounge survivor Stewart Butler summed it up: ā€œA tragedy that, as far as I know, no good came of.ā€ 

Finally, in 1991, at Stewart Butler and Charlene Schneiderā€™s nudging, the UpStairs Lounge story became aligned with the crusade of liberated gays and lesbians seeking equal rights in Louisiana. The halls of power responded with intermittent progress. The New Orleans City Council, horrified by the story but not yet ready to take its look in the mirror, enacted an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting gays and lesbians in housing, employment, and public accommodations that Dec. 12 ā€” more than 18 years after the fire. 

ā€œI believe the fire was the catalyst for the anger to bring us all to the table,ā€ Schneider told The Times-Picayune, a tacit rebuke to Esteveā€™s strategy of silent accommodation. Even Esteve seemed to change his stance with time, granting a full interview with the first UpStairs Lounge scholar Johnny Townsend sometime around 1989. 

Most of the figures in this historic tale are now deceased. Whatā€™s left is an enduring story that refused to go gently. The story now echoes around the world ā€” a musical about the UpStairs Lounge fire recently played in Tokyo, translating the gay underworld of the 1973 French Quarter for Japanese audiences.

When I finished my presentation to the City Council last June, I looked up to see the seven council members in tears. Unanimously, they approved a resolution acknowledging the historic failures of city leaders in the wake of the UpStairs Lounge fire. 

Council members personally apologized to UpStairs Lounge families and survivors seated in the chamber in a symbolic act that, though it could not bring back those who died, still mattered greatly to those whose pain had been denied, leaving them to grieve alone. At long last, official silence and indifference gave way to heartfelt words of healing. 

The way Americans remember the past is an active, ongoing process. Our collective memory is malleable, but it matters because it speaks volumes about our maturity as a people, how we acknowledge the pastā€™s influence in our lives, and how it shapes the examples we set for our youth. Do we grapple with difficult truths, or do we duck accountability by defaulting to nostalgia and bluster? Or worse, do we simply ignore the past until it fades into a black hole of ignorance and indifference? 

I believe that a factual retelling of the UpStairs Lounge tragedy ā€” and how, 50 years onward, it became known internationally ā€” resonates beyond our current divides. It reminds queer and non-queer Americans that ignoring the past holds back the present, and that silence is no cure for what ails a participatory nation. 

Silence isolates. Silence gaslights and shrouds. It preserves the power structures that scapegoat the disempowered. 

Solidarity, on the other hand, unites. Solidarity illuminates a path forward together. Above all, solidarity transforms the downtrodden into a resounding chorus of citizens ā€” in the spirit of voices who once gathered ā€˜round a white baby grand piano and sang, joyfully and loudly, ā€œUnited We Stand.ā€ 

(Photo by Philip Ames/Times-Picayune; reprinted with permission)

Robert W. Fieseler is a New Orleans-based journalist and the author of ā€œTinderbox: the Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation.ā€

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New Supreme Court term includes critical LGBTQ case with ‘terrifying’ consequences

Business owner seeks to decline services for same-sex weddings

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The U.S. Supreme Court is to set consider the case of 303 Creative, which seeks to refuse design services for same-sex weddings. (Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The U.S. Supreme Court, after a decision overturning Roe v. Wade that still leaves many reeling, is starting a new term with justices slated to revisit the issue of LGBTQ rights.

In 303 Creative v. Elenis, the court will return to the issue of whether or not providers of custom-made goods can refuse service to LGBTQ customers on First Amendment grounds. In this case, the business owner is Lorie Smith, a website designer in Colorado who wants to opt out of providing her graphic design services for same-sex weddings despite the civil rights law in her state.

Jennifer Pizer, acting chief legal officer of Lambda Legal, said in an interview with the Blade, “it’s not too much to say an immeasurably huge amount is at stake” for LGBTQ people depending on the outcome of the case.

“This contrived idea that making custom goods, or offering a custom service, somehow tacitly conveys an endorsement of the person ā€” if that were to be accepted, that would be a profound change in the law,” Pizer said. “And the stakes are very high because there are no practical, obvious, principled ways to limit that kind of an exception, and if the law isn’t clear in this regard, then the people who are at risk of experiencing discrimination have no security, no effective protection by having a non-discrimination laws, because at any moment, as one makes their way through the commercial marketplace, you don’t know whether a particular business person is going to refuse to serve you.”

The upcoming arguments and decision in the 303 Creative case mark a return to LGBTQ rights for the Supreme Court, which had no lawsuit to directly address the issue in its previous term, although many argued the Dobbs decision put LGBTQ rights in peril and threatened access to abortion for LGBTQ people.

And yet, the 303 Creative case is similar to other cases the Supreme Court has previously heard on the providers of services seeking the right to deny services based on First Amendment grounds, such as Masterpiece Cakeshop and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. In both of those cases, however, the court issued narrow rulings on the facts of litigation, declining to issue sweeping rulings either upholding non-discrimination principles or First Amendment exemptions.

Pizer, who signed one of the friend-of-the-court briefs in opposition to 303 Creative, said the case is “similar in the goals” of the Masterpiece Cakeshop litigation on the basis they both seek exemptions to the same non-discrimination law that governs their business, the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, or CADA, and seek “to further the social and political argument that they should be free to refuse same-sex couples or LGBTQ people in particular.”

“So there’s the legal goal, and it connects to the social and political goals and in that sense, it’s the same as Masterpiece,” Pizer said. “And so there are multiple problems with it again, as a legal matter, but also as a social matter, because as with the religion argument, it flows from the idea that having something to do with us is endorsing us.”

One difference: the Masterpiece Cakeshop litigation stemmed from an act of refusal of service after owner, Jack Phillips, declined to make a custom-made wedding cake for a same-sex couple for their upcoming wedding. No act of discrimination in the past, however, is present in the 303 Creative case. The owner seeks to put on her website a disclaimer she won’t provide services for same-sex weddings, signaling an intent to discriminate against same-sex couples rather than having done so.

As such, expect issues of standing ā€” whether or not either party is personally aggrieved and able bring to a lawsuit ā€” to be hashed out in arguments as well as whether the litigation is ripe for review as justices consider the case. It’s not hard to see U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts, who has sought to lead the court to reach less sweeping decisions (sometimes successfully, and sometimes in the Dobbs case not successfully) to push for a decision along these lines.

Another key difference: The 303 Creative case hinges on the argument of freedom of speech as opposed to the two-fold argument of freedom of speech and freedom of religious exercise in the Masterpiece Cakeshop litigation. Although 303 Creative requested in its petition to the Supreme Court review of both issues of speech and religion, justices elected only to take up the issue of free speech in granting a writ of certiorari (or agreement to take up a case). Justices also declined to accept another question in the petition request of review of the 1990 precedent in Smith v. Employment Division, which concluded states can enforce neutral generally applicable laws on citizens with religious objections without violating the First Amendment.

Representing 303 Creative in the lawsuit is Alliance Defending Freedom, a law firm that has sought to undermine civil rights laws for LGBTQ people with litigation seeking exemptions based on the First Amendment, such as the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.

Kristen Waggoner, president of Alliance Defending Freedom, wrote in a Sept. 12 legal brief signed by her and other attorneys that a decision in favor of 303 Creative boils down to a clear-cut violation of the First Amendment.

“Colorado and the United States still contend that CADA only regulates sales transactions,” the brief says. “But their cases do not apply because they involve non-expressive activities: selling BBQ, firing employees, restricting school attendance, limiting club memberships, and providing room access. Coloradoā€™s own cases agree that the government may not use public-accommodation laws to affect a commercial actorā€™s speech.”

Pizer, however, pushed back strongly on the idea a decision in favor of 303 Creative would be as focused as Alliance Defending Freedom purports it would be, arguing it could open the door to widespread discrimination against LGBTQ people.

“One way to put it is art tends to be in the eye of the beholder,” Pizer said. “Is something of a craft, or is it art? I feel like I’m channeling Lily Tomlin. Remember ‘soup and art’? We have had an understanding that whether something is beautiful or not is not the determining factor about whether something is protected as artistic expression. There’s a legal test that recognizes if this is speech, whose speech is it, whose message is it? Would anyone who was hearing the speech or seeing the message understand it to be the message of the customer or of the merchants or craftsmen or business person?”

Despite the implications in the case for LGBTQ rights, 303 Creative may have supporters among LGBTQ people who consider themselves proponents of free speech.

One joint friend-of-the-court brief before the Supreme Court, written by Dale Carpenter, a law professor at Southern Methodist University who’s written in favor of LGBTQ rights, and Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment legal scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, argues the case is an opportunity to affirm the First Amendment applies to goods and services that are uniquely expressive.

“Distinguishing expressive from non-expressive products in some contexts might be hard, but the Tenth Circuit agreed that Smithā€™s product does not present a hard case,” the brief says. “Yet that court (and Colorado) declined to recognize any exemption for products constituting speech. The Tenth Circuit has effectively recognized a state interest in subjecting the creation of speech itself to antidiscrimination laws.”

Oral arguments in the case aren’t yet set, but may be announced soon. Set to defend the state of Colorado and enforcement of its non-discrimination law in the case is Colorado Solicitor General Eric Reuel Olson. Just this week, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would grant the request to the U.S. solicitor general to present arguments before the justices on behalf of the Biden administration.

With a 6-3 conservative majority on the court that has recently scrapped the super-precedent guaranteeing the right to abortion, supporters of LGBTQ rights may think the outcome of the case is all but lost, especially amid widespread fears same-sex marriage would be next on the chopping block. After the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against 303 Creative in the lawsuit, the simple action by the Supreme Court to grant review in the lawsuit suggests they are primed to issue a reversal and rule in favor of the company.

Pizer, acknowledging the call to action issued by LGBTQ groups in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, conceded the current Supreme Court issuing the ruling in this case is “a terrifying prospect,” but cautioned the issue isn’t so much the makeup of the court but whether or not justices will continue down the path of abolishing case law.

“I think the question that we’re facing with respect to all of the cases or at least many of the cases that are in front of the court right now, is whether this court is going to continue on this radical sort of wrecking ball to the edifice of settled law and seemingly a goal of setting up whole new structures of what our basic legal principles are going to be. Are we going to have another term of that?” Pizer said. “And if so, that’s terrifying.”

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Kelley Robinson, a Black, queer woman, named president of Human Rights Campaign

Progressive activist a veteran of Planned Parenthood Action Fund

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Kelley Robinson (Screen capture via HRC YouTube)

Kelley Robinson, a Black, queer woman and veteran of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, is to become the next president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s leading LGBTQ group announced on Tuesday.

Robinson is set to become the ninth president of the Human Rights Campaign after having served as executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund and more than 12 years of experience as a leader in the progressive movement. She’ll be the first Black, queer woman to serve in that role.

ā€œIā€™m honored and ready to lead HRC ā€” and our more than three million member-advocates ā€” as we continue working to achieve equality and liberation for all Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer people,ā€ Robinson said. ā€œThis is a pivotal moment in our movement for equality for LGBTQ+ people. We, particularly our trans and BIPOC communities, are quite literally in the fight for our lives and facing unprecedented threats that seek to destroy us.”

Kelley Robinson IS NAMED as The next human rights Campaign president

The next Human Rights Campaign president is named as Democrats are performing well in polls in the mid-term elections after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, leaving an opening for the LGBTQ group to play a key role amid fears LGBTQ rights are next on the chopping block.

“The overturning of Roe v. Wade reminds us we are just one Supreme Court decision away from losing fundamental freedoms including the freedom to marry, voting rights, and privacy,” Robinson said. “We are facing a generational opportunity to rise to these challenges and create real, sustainable change. I believe that working together this change is possible right now. This next chapter of the Human Rights Campaign is about getting to freedom and liberation without any exceptions ā€” and today I am making a promise and commitment to carry this work forward.ā€

The Human Rights Campaign announces its next president after a nearly year-long search process after the board of directors terminated its former president Alphonso David when he was ensnared in the sexual misconduct scandal that led former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign. David has denied wrongdoing and filed a lawsuit against the LGBTQ group alleging racial discrimination.

Kelley Robinson, Planned Parenthood, Cathy Chu, SMYAL, Supporting and Mentoring Youth Advocates and Leaders, Amy Nelson, Whitman-Walker Health, Sheroes of the Movement, Mayor's office of GLBT Affairs, gay news, Washington Blade
Kelley Robinson, seen here with Cathy Chu of SMYAL and Amy Nelson of Whitman-Walker Health, is the next Human Rights Campaign president. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
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