Religious Exemptions

Recently, as these election-year LGBT-bashing bills have proliferated, some gay bloggers and reporters have started asking what members of the community also must be wondering: Are our LGBT organizations prepared to deal with this unprecedented level of legislative and ballot attacks? Lambda Legal has been preparing steadily during the past three years and implementing strategies to fight back and win. At the same time, we know our opponents are well-funded and determined, and winning will not be easy.

After the Georgia Senate passed the so-called "First Amendment Defense Act of Georgia (FADA)", Lambda Legal urged the House to reject HB 757. The anti-LGBT bill encourages private businesses, individuals and medical and social services agencies to discriminate against anyone in Georgia on religious grounds.

There are currently four bills targeting the LGBT community pending in South Dakota, three of which are especially harmful to transgender people.

Yesterday, Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Zubik v. Burwell and six related cases urging the Court to reject arguments made by religiously affiliated nonprofit organizations who argue that it burdens their religious beliefs simply to notify the federal government that they are opting out of providing their employees insurance coverage for contraceptives under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Lambda Legal filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, Asheville Division, seeking compensation for Sandra Lively, a registered nurse at North Carolina hospital Park Ridge Health, for the thousands of dollars of expenses she incurred when the hospital refused to allow her to enroll her same-sex spouse in the employee health plan.