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The House vote on the Equality Act is the easy part. What’s next?

Comprehensive LGBT bill faces difficult path in Senate

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Equality Act, gay news, Washington Blade
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) speaks at the reintroduction of the Equality Act at the U.S. Capitol on May 2, 2019. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The vote this week on the Equality Act will be a historic moment marking the first-time a chamber of Congress has approved the comprehensive LGBT legislation, but that will be the easy part in getting it to become law.

With 240 co-sponsors, the Democratic-controlled House is set to approve the Equality Act with no problem, but with Republicans enjoying a majority in the Senate, supporters will need to pick up 13 GOP votes to reach the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster (assuming the entire Democratic caucus is united, which is not the case with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin against the bill).

Then there’s President Trump, who came out in opposition to the Equality Act via comments from a senior administration official to the Blade on the basis of unspecified ā€œpoison pillā€ amendments in the bill, and opposition from religious groups like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Church of Latter-day Saints.

Overcoming all these odds would require a Herculean effort and be an unprecedented achievement of legislative strategy, to say the least.

LGBT rights advocates familiar with the strategy for the Equality Act, however, told the Blade they werenā€™t willing to say die after the vote and are seeking paths to enshrine the Equality Actā€™s prohibition on anti-LGBT discrimination into law this Congress.

The Blade solicited comments from LGBT advocates working on the legislation on condition of anonymity so they could speak more candidly about the strategy.

One LGBT advocate said the campaign for the Equality Act is ā€œnot just an effort to win a resounding as possible House vote, although that certainly isā€¦one the biggest hurdles.ā€

The advocate said ā€œthereā€™s a fair amount of energyā€ in working with the Senate on the Equality Act among its business supporters, which includes 200 businesses, the U.S. Chamber of Congress and the National Association of Manufacturers.

ā€œI donā€™t have a conversation with these companies that stops at ā€˜What are we doing for the House vote?ā€™ā€ the advocate said. ā€œThey all say, ā€˜This is really exciting. We want to also work on X, Y, Z senators when we get to the point after the House vote.ā€™ā€

Following passage of the Equality Act in the House, one advocate said ā€œweā€™re going to see if we can have a test vote in the Senate,” which will be mostly be an amendment introduced by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the sponsor of the bill, to another legislative vehicle pending before the Senate floor.

ā€œIf they do bring bills to the floor and allow amendments, we will very much be looking for an opportunity to get a test vote on the Equality Act,ā€ the advocate said.

But being in a position to offer the Equality Act as an amendment is no small task. With Republicans in the majority, it would require consent from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who isnā€™t exactly known as a supporter of LGBT rights.

Moreover, the Senate at this time is almost exclusively focused on confirming Trumpā€™s judicial nominees and rarely takes up legislation, let alone a bill approved by the Democratic-controlled House.

A McConnell spokesperson told the Blade Wednesday via email Senate Republican leadership had ā€œno scheduling announcement regarding Senate actionā€ at this time on the Equality Act.

Once an agreement is reached for a vote, the next part is the extraordinary heavy lift of finding 14 senators who arenā€™t co-sponsors of the Equality Act to vote for the bill. As of right now, the only Republican co-sponsor is Sen. Susan Collins (Maine).

The first tier of likely Republicans votes, one LGBT advocate said, would be Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), who has a reputation for bucking the Republican caucus and said last year she voted against the Anchorage anti-transgender measure at the ballot, and Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio), who has a gay son. Both Republicans support same-sex marriage and voted for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2013.

The next tier is Republicans, the advocate said, from traditionally ā€œblueā€ states, which includes Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), as well as Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), who represents an increasingly ā€œblueā€ state and is behind in the polls as he faces a re-election bid this year.

Although Manchin ā€” the lone Democrat in the Senate not to co-sponsor the Equality Act ā€” has stated opposition to the legislation, citing concerns with having ā€œsufficient guidance to the local [education] officials who will be responsible for implementing,ā€ the West Virginian would likely also vote for the Equality Act if enough Republicans came on board, one LGBT advocate said.

The next tranche of senators is harder. Top of the list is Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who said in 1994 while seeking to defeat the late Sen. Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts heā€™d co-sponsor ENDA and ā€œif possible broaden [it] to include housing and credit.ā€ (He remained silent on LGBT non-discrimination during his 2012 presidential campaign and his latest run for the Senate.)

Others would be the Republicans from Florida ā€” Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio ā€” although one advocate snidely said Rubio would have to ā€œdecide he wasnā€™t running for presidentā€ as a Republican for him to be in play. Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) were also mentioned, but one advocate acknowledged that was ā€œstretchingā€ things a bit.

One LGBT advocate expressed an openness to ā€œchanges that could be made to attract additional balanceā€ to the Equality Act, such as an amendment to make clear religious liberty under the First Amendment is upheld under the legislation.

ā€œWe werenā€™t particularly interested in doing that to satisfy people who were still going to vote against the bill, but we could provide clarityā€¦for people who are actually planning to vote for the bill and want to be able to point to clarity on certain areas,ā€ the advocate said. ā€œThat would not be problematic because we think the bill strikes the right balance in a whole host of ways.ā€

But even the number of senators listed there doesnā€™t get to 60. One LGBT advocate said he ā€œcould count to 60, eventually,ā€ but a vote in the Senate would probably fall short of that number.

ā€œWe probably would not hit 60, but I feel pretty confident we could get a vote that shows we have a majority in the U.S. Senate, and potentially even a sizable majority of the U.S. Senate,ā€ the advocate said.

A shakeup in the Senate after the 2020 election, the advocate said, would be the more likely route to victory in the chamber for the Equality Act.

ā€œItā€™s awfully hard to do it in this Congress, with the current composition of the Senate,ā€ the advocate said. ā€œI do think we have to pick up a few more Democratic seats, or pick up a few more pro-equality Republicans.ā€

The past might provide guidance for the Equality Act. In 2013, LGBT advocates faced a similar situation in efforts to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, legislation that sought to ban anti-LGBT discrimination in the workforce. ENDA was similar in this respect to the Equality Act, although was more limited in scope because it didnā€™t address other aspects of civil rights law.

The LGBT group Freedom to Work formed with the exclusive purpose of guiding ENDA into law. A $2 million grassroots campaign known as the Americans for Workplace Opportunity was also formed to engage legislators seen as moveable on the legislation.

Although a House vote on ENDA never took place, the Senate approved the legislation with 10 Republican votes and the number of Republican co-sponsors in the House gradually grew before LGBT advocates essentially pulled the plug based on concerns over an overly broad religious exemption in the bill.

One LGBT advocate said he expected ā€œa grassroots campaign to put pressure on the Senate,ā€ but he ā€œcanā€™t put a price tagā€ on that at this time.

ā€œThis is a campaign that weā€™re going to take our time in ramping up,ā€ the advocate said. ā€œItā€™s going to look different, I think, in different states. When we look at who the targets are, they really are all in battleground, presidential states, almost to the person.ā€

In the miraculous event the Equality Act is approved in the Senate, the legislation would head to Trump, who made his opposition to the legislation clear this week via comments from a senior administration official to the Blade.

ā€œThe Trump administration absolutely opposes discrimination of any kind and supports the equal treatment of all; however, this bill in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights,ā€ the senior administration official said.

But the response from the anonymous official isnā€™t binding, and Trump would be under enormous pressure to the sign the Equality Act in the hypothetical event of a bipartisan vote in the Senate with 14 Republicans in favor of the bill.

One advocate speculated Trumpā€™s decision on the Equality Act in that event ā€œdepends on whom he watches on Fox News the moment before itā€™s put on his desk.ā€

ā€œHeā€™s president of his base, and heā€™s going to have the vice president saying into his ear he canā€™t sign this, and if you do, social conservatives will get mad at you, and therefore he will probably veto it,ā€ the advocate said. ā€œBut I donā€™t think thatā€™s a smart move. I think it would be a tremendous move for him sign it and reposition himself for his re-elect saying heā€™s not a prisoner of his base.ā€

At the end of the day, the House vote on the Equality Act will likely be the end of the road for this legislation. But that alone would be an achievement and would build the legislative record for the future.

Looking back, the Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act obtained 14 separate votes in either chamber of Congress before former President Barack Obama finally signed the measure into law in 2009.

ā€œGetting the first one done is really, really important, and it sets the tone for the rest,ā€ the advocate said. ā€œGetting the vote in the House sets the stage for how we begin to build our case in the Senate for passage of the Equality Act eventually.ā€

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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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