Late yesterday evening, the Oklahoma legislature passed SB1140, a license-to-discriminate bill that would allow taxpayer-funded child welfare agencies to reject foster or adoptive parents based upon the agency’s religious beliefs. Not to be outdone, several hours later Kansas legislators passed a similar bill – SB284. Both bills are now before the governors of Oklahoma and Kansas awaiting signature.
(Salem, OR, March 15, 2018) – The Oregon Supreme Court today affirmed a determination by the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability that Judge Vance D. Day had violated state rules of judicial ethics when he devised a scheme to avoid marrying same-sex couples by instructing court staff to investigate the gender of marriage applicants and represent that he was unavailable if they were of the same sex, among other charges. The Court imposed a three-year suspension on Judge Day.
Lambda Legal filed friend-of-the-court briefs on behalf of Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, a lesbian couple, urging the Oregon appellate courts to uphold a lower court ruling that the former owners of a bakery violated Oregon’s anti-discrimination law when they refused to sell a wedding cake to Rachel and Laurel because the bakers claimed it was against their religion to help same-sex couples celebrate their marriages.
(Salem, OR, March 16, 2018) – Lambda Legal today urged the Oregon Supreme Court to deny a petition from the former owners of an Oregon bakery seeking to overturn a lower court ruling that they violated Oregon’s anti-discrimination law in 2013 when they refused to sell a wedding cake to a lesbian couple because they claimed it was against their religion. The petition, filed by the anti-LGBT legal organization First Liberty Institute on behalf of the former owners of Gresham, Oregon-based Sweet Cakes by Melissa, comes as the U.S.
Lambda Legal and co-counsel Mathis, Marifian & Richter, LTD. filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on behalf of Mark Horton, a healthcare sales specialist whose job offer at St. Louis-based Midwest Geriatric Management (MGM) was withdrawn when the employer learned Horton is gay.
(Honolulu, HI, February 23, 2018) – The Intermediate Court of Appeals of the State of Hawai`i today affirmed a lower court ruling against a Hawai`i bed and breakfast that denied a room to a lesbian couple because of their sexual orientation. Aloha Bed & Breakfast, whose owner says same-sex relationships “defile our land,” is represented by the anti-LGBT legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which has claimed a religious justification for the discrimination.
The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday upheld a $700,000 jury award for Lori Franchina, a lesbian firefighter who experienced extensive unchecked harassment from her co-workers at the Providence Fire Department.
Lambda Legal and OutServe-SLDN today asked a federal district court to permanently block enforcement of the Trump Administration’s plan to ban transgender people from serving openly in the U.S. Armed Services.
Today’s proposed HHS rule represents nothing less than our own government attacking LGBT people, everyone living with HIV, women and many others in urgent need of health care.
