homepage news
One year after Utah, a cascade of rulings on marriage
First same-sex couple to marry in Beehive State reflects on advancing gay nuptials
It was one year ago on Dec. 20, 2013 that a federal judge in Utah ruled the U.S. constitution guarantees the right for same-sex couples to marry in the state, starting an unprecedented cascade of 35 or so court rulings in favor of marriage equality over the course of the next year.
First among same-sex couples to marry in the state were Salt Lake City residents J. Seth Anderson and Michael Ferguson, who became an overnight Internet sensation for broadcasting their wedding on Twitter. The couple, who spoke with the Washington Blade on their anniversary, led the way for 1,300 same-sex couples to marry before the Supreme Court temporarily halted any further weddings from taking place.
Anderson said what especially sticks out for the couple one year later was “complete unexpectedness” of the court ruling at the time, although he had a feeling immediately afterward the change was big.
“That night, when Michael and I, were walking home I remember distinctly feeling that the ground felt different, the air felt different, that the stars looked different,” Anderson said. “I could feel that it was palatable that the world had shifted, and I remember that very vividly.”
In the year-long period since U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby determined the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits Utah from banning same-sex marriage in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision against DOMA, 26 federal district judges, four federal appeals courts and a half-dozen state courts at various levels followed with similar rulings.
In a handful of the states affected by the decisions, including Utah, judges refused to stay their rulings, enabling same-sex couples to wed almost immediately in places where laws previously prohibited same-sex marriage.
Only a handful of courts in this period upheld bans on same-sex marriage: A federal court in Louisiana, another federal court in Puerto Rico and a circuit judge in Tennessee. The most significant of these decisions was the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in favor of bans on same-sex marriage in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Ferguson said the association of Utah with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which heavily backed the passage of California’s now-overturned Proposition 8, made having the court ruling there first among others “a major source of pride.”
“It was very gratifying after so many years of the LDS Church spending immense amounts of financial and political capital to oppress the LGBT community, there was this poetic, sweet justice in Utah then being one of the key states before this burst of acceleration toward full equality,” Ferguson said.
The Utah ruling was distinct not only because it was first federal court ruling on marriage in the aftermath of the DOMA decision, but also because it shattered expectations of what would be necessary to bring marriage equality to the most conservative of states.
Evan Wolfson, president of the LGBT group Freedom to Marry, said the language in the ruling itself helped propel other courts to similarly find a right for same-sex couples to marry.
“The ruling was clear and compelling, and contained what might be my favorite line from all of the rulings we’ve won over the past couple years: ‘It is not the Constitution that has changed, but the knowledge of what it means to be gay or lesbian,'” Wolfson said. “The case thus affirmed our strategy of changing hearts and minds and building a critical mass of states and support to create the climate that would enable the kinds of rulings we have since seen across the country and that set the stage for the Supreme Court win we have always aimed toward (and must keep working for until we’ve won).”
Moreover, Utah same-sex marriages were unique among others because they were subject to legal turmoil over the course the year.
After the Supreme Court stayed the weddings, Gov. Gary Herbert announced the state wouldn’t recognize the marriages, but U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced they would be recognized for federal purposes. The ACLU of Utah filed litigation seeking to compel Utah to recognize the marriages, and although aĀ district court granted a preliminary injunction in favor of same-sex couples, which was upheld by the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, that decision was later stayed by the Supreme Court.
Finally, the Supreme Court announced it wouldn’t review the decision in favor of right for same-sex couples to marry in Utah, ending the process of appeal of all litigation and enshriningĀ marriage equality in the state.
Anderson said he and Ferguson like to joke all the legal turmoil over the course of the past year has made it so the couple is “on our third marriage this year.”
“I remember feeling a sadness really that we were under such attack for so many months, and then they couldn’t do that any more,” AndersonĀ said. “I still think I need a little bit more distance to fully understand and comprehend just how violent that was.”
As rulings in favor of same-sex marriage continued in the year to follow, public support for same-sex marriage continued to be strong. In March, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found a record high of 59 percent of Americans approve of same-sex marriage, with only 34 percent opposed. Although some have speculated growth in support for same-sex marriage is now stagnant, polls continue to show more than majority of the United States backs gay nuptials.
Andrew Flores, public opinion project director for the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, said upcoming research from the think-tank currently undergoing scientific peer review demonstrates the legalization of same-sex marriage contributes to its rise in support.
“We have been able to find that the opinions of residents of states that passed marriage equality tend to increase their support for the policy,” Flores said. “We suspect that this may be that passage of the policy may make same-sex marriage more familiar to people. We have also found that when these policies pass, feelings toward lesbian and gay people also positively change.”
But even though the number of marriage-equality states has skyrocketed from 19 to 35 over the course of a year, the number of states that prohibit LGBT discrimination increased by just one after Gov. Martin O’Malley signed into law a transgender civil rights measure in Maryland. Fourteen states with marriage equality are left with no explicit LGBT on-discrimination protections for employment, non-discrimination or housing.
Laura Durso, director of the LGBT project at the Center for American Progress, said the expansion of marriage equality into states without non-discrimination protections means “loving and committed same-sex couples in those 14 states can now legally marry and then legally be fired for doing so all on the same day.”
“Newly married spouses will effectively out themselves on employment, health, or tax forms, or credit or housing applications without protection from discrimination that may occur in those contexts,” Durso said. “Gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans should not have to choose between exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to marry and securing a job or safe and stable shelter.”
It’s for that reason that the Center for American Progress is among the groups calling for passing a comprehensive federal non-discrimination bill with protections for LGBT people based on employment, housing, credit, federal programs, public accommodations and education.
Troy Williams, executive director of the statewide LGBT group Equality Utah, said he’s unaware thus far of any incidents of LGBT discrimination in his state as a result of same-sex couples marrying, but is on the lookout for such stories.
“So far, we have not received any specific reports about people being discriminated against post-marriage,” Williams said. “I’ve had reports of some difficulty having their work process spousal insurance claims, but they tend to be resolved after an appeal. We are in the process of soliciting harm stories though, and will keep you posted.”
Although he said he hasn’t faced workplace and housing discrimination, Ferguson said he feels has he faced harassment in Utah as a result of his decision to enter into a same-sex marriage.
“I definitely have seen people react negatively and flat-out call me an enemy to my face and say I have now used ā the whole tripeĀ we’ve heard before ā this sacred institution as a political symbol in order to make a mockery of things they hold to be sacred,” Ferguson said.
Anderson acknowledged same-sex marriage in Utah angered a lot of people in the state and predicted the conservative state legislature may devise a way to counter the court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage in the next session.
“I’m waiting to see, especially given the Hobby Lobby ruling and the religious freedom argument that’s coming, that marriage isn’t the end of the line,” Anderson said.
The expected culmination of these rulings is a nationwide decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 on whether the same-sex couples have a right to marry nationwide. Although the Supreme Court refused to review rulings in October from federal appeals courts in favor of same-sex marriage, that is expected to change now that the Sixth Circuit has upheld marriage bans with its jurisdiction, creating a split among the circuit courts.
Plaintiff same-sex couples in each of the Sixth Circuit states have filed petitions for certiorari as have plaintiffs couples in the Louisiana case, even though the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over that state, has yet to render a decision on the ban on gay nuptials in that state. The Supreme Court docketed the Louisiana lawsuits for its Jan. 9 conference as one of the cases it may consider before its term is out this summer.
Ferguson said the Supreme Court should take heed of the many thousands of same-sex couples who were newly able to marry over the course of 2014 as it weighs whether to find a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
“If the interests of a government is to promote the general welfare, look at the lives of these couples that are now more secure, look at the children of these families that are more well-adjusted, look at the way that incorporations of citizens of the country helps everybody,” Ferguson said. “All the healthy psychological markers that happen time and time again with stable relationships are things that we want to have in our country. Again, if one of the explicit purposes of the American government is to promote the general, hey, the proof is in the pudding.”
homepage news
Honoring the legacy of New Orleansā 1973 UpStairs Lounge fire
Why the arson attack that killed 32 gay men still resonates 50 years later
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, āUnited We Standā by the Brotherhood of Man.
āUnited we stand,ā the men would sing together, ādivided we fallā ā the words epitomizing the ethos of their beloved UpStairs Lounge bar, an egalitarian free space that served as a forerunner to todayās 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: āSome 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 āhelp our bereaved brothers and sistersā ā and shatter officialdomās code of silence.
Perry broke local taboos by holding a press conference as an openly gay man. āItās 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.
āThis fire had very little to do with the gay movement or with anything gay,ā Esteve told a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer. āI 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.
āPhil said the cash register, juke box, cigarette machine and some wallets had money removed,ā recounted Esteveās friend Bob McAnear, a former U.S. Customs officer. āPhil wouldnāt 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. āHow 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. āReverend 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.
Esteve doubted the UpStairs Lounge storyās 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 āUnited 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 cityās 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, āWhere are the gay activists in New Orleans?,ā Esteve responded that there were none, because none were needed. āWe donāt feel weāre discriminated against,ā Esteve said. āNew 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
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 Charleneās, 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: āA tragedy that, as far as I know, no good came of.ā
Finally, in 1991, at Stewart Butler and Charlene Schneiderās 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.
āI 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 Esteveās 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. Whatās 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 pastās 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 āround a white baby grand piano and sang, joyfully and loudly, āUnited We Stand.ā
Robert W. Fieseler is a New Orleans-based journalist and the author of āTinderbox: the Untold Story of the Up Stairs Lounge Fire and the Rise of Gay Liberation.ā
homepage news
New Supreme Court term includes critical LGBTQ case with ‘terrifying’ consequences
Business owner seeks to decline services for same-sex weddings
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. Coloradoās own cases agree that the government may not use public-accommodation laws to affect a commercial actorās 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 Smithās 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.”
homepage news
Kelley Robinson, a Black, queer woman, named president of Human Rights Campaign
Progressive activist a veteran of Planned Parenthood Action Fund
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.
āIām 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. āThis 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.”
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.
-
U.S. Supreme Court5 days ago
Trans rights supporters, opponents rally outside Supreme Court as justices consider Tenn. law
-
Congress4 days ago
Protests against anti-trans bathroom policy lead to more than a dozen arrests
-
Opinions4 days ago
Will RFK Jr.ās ideas cause illness and death?
-
South Africa4 days ago
WorldPride 2028 to take place in Cape Town