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2017 a mixed bag for state legislatures on LGBT issues

Anti-trans measures defeated, but ‘religious freedom’ bills advance

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Clockwise from upper left, Gov. Brian Sandoval (R-Nevada) signed an “ex-gay” therapy ban, Gov. Greg Abbot (R-Texas) signed an anti-LGBT adoption bill, Gov. Roy Cooper (D-N.C.) signed an HB2 deal and Gov. Susana Martinez (R-N.M.) signed an “ex-gay” therapy ban. (Sandoval photo public domain; Abbot photo by Gage Skidmore courtesy Flickr; Cooper photo by RadioFan courtesy Wikimedia Commons; Martinez photo by Steve Terrell courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

With state legislative sessions wrapped in just about every state ā€” including two sessions to pass anti-trans legislation in Texas if you count the general session and the special session ā€”2017 proved a mixed bag on LGBT-related bills across the country.

In Texas, transgender rights supporters thwarted an attempt by state leaders to enact legislation that would have barred transgender people from using the restroom consistent with their gender identity.

However, Texas ā€” along with Alabama and South Dakota ā€” enacted laws allowing taxpayer-funded adoption agencies to deny placements in homes based on religious objections, which could result in discrimination against LGBT families.

On the pro-LGBT side, four states ā€” Connecticut, Nevada, New Mexico and Rhode Island ā€” enacted legislation barring the widely discredited practice of “ex-gay” conversion therapy for youth. But states also rejected efforts to advance LGBT non-discrimination protections, including New Hampshire, where a bill to expand the gay-only human rights law to cover transgender people was tabled on the House floor.

Eunice Rho, advocacy and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Washington Blade activity at the state level “wasnā€™t as damaging as it could have been” on LGBT issues this year.

“I donā€™t think a single anti-trans bill about public accommodations passed this session, which was really heartening and also we didn’t see bills like the RFRA or FADA pass at the state level, too,” Rho said.

Amanda McLain-Snipes, director of advocacy programs at the Equality Federation, said LGBT advocates “were quite successful in stopping harmful legislation” initiated by opponents of LGBT rights.

“The most recent evidence of that being Texas where they tried to pass anti-transgender legislation during their regular session, were unsuccessful, called a special session and were unsuccessful again,” McLain-Snipes said. “And thatā€™s even in a state like Texas, and so it gives us cause for celebration.”

In Texas, the anti-trans bathroom bill was defeated despite a massive push from Republican lawmakers and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who made passing the measure a top legislative priority.

Lawmakers sought to pass a bill that would undercut city ordinances barring anti-trans discrimination in bathrooms and locker rooms and prohibit transgender people from using the restroom in government buildings and schools consistent with their gender identity.

In the general session, the measure died after the House and the Senate couldn’t agree on the exact form the legislation would take. After that session ended, trans rights advocates thought they were in the clear, but Gov. Greg Abbott called for a special session to ensure anti-trans legislation would reach his desk.

Nonetheless, although the Senate passed a measure, lawmakers didn’t follow suit in the House, where House Speaker Joe Straus opposed the measure. The special session ended last week without an anti-trans measure reaching the governor’s desk.

The Texas measure failed after a massive outcry from transgender advocates, business leaders and law enforcement officials. CEOs from 51 Fortune 500 companies publicly denounced the bill, 20 of which were based in Texas. The Dallas Stars, an ice hockey team, publicly came out against the measure and the Dallas Cowboys were credited with working against it behind the scenes.

Rho said anti-trans legislation was unsuccessful in Texas because trans rights supporters had “done such a good job” informing the public about the “damage that it causes to trans kids in particular but trans adults as well.”

“I think there is a really big force behind a victory like in Texas, with the business communities from the beginning of the legislative session into the end of the special session being vocal about why they didnā€™t want these kinds of bills in their state,” Rho said.

McLain-Snipes said the defeat of the anti-trans legislation was the result of how “people heard our stories” after the transgender community spoke out.

“The power of transgender people sharing their experience and their fears with the potential of this legislation passing really let other Texans know what was at stake, and as a result, folks were calling their representatives and their senators and saying, ‘Donā€™t do this on my behalf,'” McLain-Snipes said. “And it really caused a lot of folks to not want to pass that type of legislation.”

Other states where anti-trans bathroom bills were introduced this year, but didn’t make it into law, were Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.

In North Carolina, where an anti-trans measure was already law as a result of former Gov. North Carolina Pat McCrory signing into law House Bill 2, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper with Republican lawmakers replaced the law with House Bill 135. The new law, which LGBT rights supporters say is still discriminatory, bars cities from passing pro-LGBT non-discrimination ordinances for three years and state agencies from “regulation of access” to bathroom facilities.

Although the anti-trans bill was defeated in Texas, Abbott signed into law ā€” perhaps as a silver medal to opponents of LGBT rights ā€” a law allowing taxpayer-funded adoption agencies to refuse child placement based on religious objections. Preceding Texas this year in enacting similar measures were Alabama and South Dakota.

Many child placement agencies are religious institutions, such as Catholic adoption agencies. Under these new laws, these agencies could be free to deny placement to an LGBT family ā€” or Jewish people, Muslims and single parents ā€” based on religious beliefs.

In Texas, McLain-Snipes said the foster care system is in crisis and “children are in state custody because they canā€™t get them places soon enough,” which made lawmakers willing to accept anti-LGBT legislation when adoption agencies threatened to bolt after the advent of marriage equality.

“In that crisis situation, the legislators felt like they needed to make that problematic compromise in order to get those religious organizations back to the table and back to offering services where they previously walked away,” McLain-Snipes said.

Rho said states that enacted anti-LGBT adoption measures were also ones were anti-trans legislation was introduced, so part of an effort “to divide attention, resources, opposition” in attempts to pass at least one anti-LGBT bill.

“Unfortunately, the adoption and foster care bills have been challenging,” Rho said. “Thereā€™s a pretty low level of understanding of how our adoption and foster care system works, and so thereā€™s not an immediate connection to the harm that it poses not just to the couples or individuals wanting to adopt, but of course the children who are in the system. So I think the immediate harm is sometimes not immediately understood.”

Broader religious freedom bills were introduced this year in Arkansas, Texas, Washington and Wyoming, but didn’t make it into law. Although the effort to pass these measures was less energetic than years past, they still were introduced and discussed.

After massive outcry over “religious freedom” measures allowing denial of services to LGBT people, such as the law Vice President Mike Pence signed as Indiana governor, McLain-Snipes said the adoption bills were the result of more narrowed attempts to enable discrimination.

“We have seen a shift from very broad religious exemption legislation to more narrowed, and the implications, reasons for denial,” McLain-Snipes said. “So thatā€™s why you saw a shift and a focus on unfortunately our most vulnerable, on families.”

The pro-LGBT side also saw victories in state legislatures. Four states ā€” Connecticut, Nevada, New Mexico and Rhode Island ā€” enacted bans against widely discredited “ex-gay” therapy for youth. The measures enjoyed such bipartisan support that in two cases Republican governors ā€” Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and New Mexico Gov. Susanna Martinez ā€” signed the bills into law.

McLain-Snipes said the passage of bans on “ex-gay” conversion therapy “gives me a lot of hope” because they demonstrate greater awareness of the harms over the practice.

“People are seeing so-called conversion therapy for what it is, which is abuse and fraud,” McLain-Snipes said. “So, decision-makers who are able to enact policies to protect vulnerable youth have been doing what they can doing their part to make sure that folks get protections from discredited practices.”

But in other states, attempts to ban “ex-gay” conversion therapy were unsuccessful. In New Hampshire, a committee in the Republican-controlled House voted to retain the measure to keep it from advancing to the floor. In Colorado, a Senate committee rejected a similar measure.

Attempts to enact non-discrimination laws, a longstanding goal of the LGBT rights movement, weren’t as successful as conversion therapy bans. Versions of legislation that would enshrine LGBT non-discrimination protections into law were introduced in just about all the 22 states that lack them, but none made it into law.

In New York, where anti-trans discrimination is already illegal as a result of an order signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, an attempt to codify those protections passed the Assembly, but remains dead-in-the-water in the Republican-controlled Senate. In New Hampshire, an attempt to expand human rights laws to include gender identity was approved in House committee, but ultimately tabled on the floor.

Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, director of public education for Freedom for All Americans, said the failure of the anti-trans bathroom bill in Texas “absolutely” affords lessons for pro-trans protections in New Hampshire ā€” even though the measures are opposite in nature.

“The huge success in Texas was all the opposition from the business community warning a bathroom ban would cost the state up to $5.6 billion in economic investment,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “New Hampshire’s economy is nowhere near as big as Texas, but not taking steps to protect trans people from discrimination would still negatively impact the state’s economy.”

Heng-Lehtinen, the transgender son of Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), also pointed out New Hampshire is now the only state in New England without explicit transgender non-discrimination protections.

“As New Hampshire works to compete with all of its neighboring states, it’s now at a disadvantage and it’s further behind all of their neighbors, so they’re this island in New England as far as the business community is concerned,” Heng-Lehtinen said.

With legislative sessions now at a close for 2017, the next phase of anti-LGBT bills may well be pre-emption bills aimed at undermining city ordinances in conservative states protecting LGBT rights.

Earlier this month on “Fox & Friends,” Patrick hinted these measures could allow Republican-controlled states to undermine Democratic authority in cities.

“Where do we have all our problems in America?” Patrick said. “Not at the state level, run by Republicans, but in our cities that are mostly controlled by Democrat mayors and Democrat city council men and women. Thatā€™s where you see liberal policies, thatā€™s where you see high taxes, where you see high street crimes.”

Rho pointed to Patrick’s remarks as evidence that pre-emption bills ā€” already the law in some form in Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina ā€” are the next wave of attacks.

“The threat about pre-emption is that it will target LGBT communities specifically because they target non-discrimination ordinances, but they really hit out at a host of reforms or progressive ideas that municipalities or localities or trying to introduce, and it will greatly reduce their power whether itā€™s about wage or family or what have you,” Rho said.

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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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