Gay Rights and the Constutn

Contents:

• EXECUTIVE ORR ON ADVANCG EQUALY FOR LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, QUEER, AND INTERSEX INDIVIDUALS
• GAY RIGHTS
• THE EQUALY CLSE: GAY RIGHTS AND THE CONSTUTN
• CALIFORNIA VOTERS WILL BE ASKED TO REAFFIRM GAY MARRIAGE PROTECTNS ON 2024 BALLOT
• CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• GAY RIGHTS VS. FREE SPEECHSUPREME COURT BACKS WEB DIGNER OPPOSED TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

EXECUTIVE ORR ON ADVANCG EQUALY FOR LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENR, QUEER, AND INTERSEX INDIVIDUALS

Evans, 1 the Supreme Court stck down a state nstutnal amendment that both overturned lol ordanc prohibg discrimatn agast homosexuals, lbians, or bisexuals, and prohibed any state or lol ernmental actn to eher remedy discrimatn or to grant preferenc based on sexual orientatn.

18 In reachg that ncln, the Court noted that, jt as evolvg societal norms rm the liberty rights of same-sex upl, so too do “new sights and societal unrstandgs” about homosexualy reveal “unjtified equaly” wh rpect to tradnal ncepts of the stutn of marriage.

Army service World War I, Gerber was spired to create his anizatn by the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee, a “homosexual emancipatn” group ’s small group published a few issu of s newsletter “Friendship and Freedom, ” the untry’s first gay-tert newsletter. Ernment signated Gerber’s Chigo hoe a Natnal Historic Pk TriangleCorbis/Getty ImagHomosexual prisoners at the ncentratn mp at Sachsenhsen, Germany, wearg pk triangl on their uniforms on December 19, gay rights movement stagnated for the next few s, though LGBT dividuals around the world did e to the spotlight a few example, English poet and thor Radclyffe Hall stirred up ntroversy 1928 when she published her lbian-themed novel, The Well of Lonels. Addnally, 1948, his book Sexual Behavr the Human Male, Aled Ksey proposed that male sexual orientatn li on a ntuum between exclively homosexual to exclively Homophile Years In 1950, Harry Hay found the Mattache Foundatn, one of the natn’s first gay rights group.

GAY RIGHTS

”Though started off small, the foundatn, which sought to improve the liv of gay men through discsn groups and related activi, expand after foundg member Dale Jenngs was arrted 1952 for solicatn and then later set ee due to a adlocked the end of the year, Jenngs formed another anizatn lled One, Inc., which weled women and published ONE, the untry’s first pro-gay magaze. Post Office, which 1954 clared the magaze “obscene” and refed to liver Mattache Society Mattache Foundatn members rtctured the anizatn to form the Mattache Society, which had lol chapters other parts of the untry and 1955 began publishg the untry’s send gay publitn, The Mattache Review.

That same year, four lbian upl San Francis found an anizatn lled the Dghters of Bilis, which soon began publishg a newsletter lled The Ladr, the first lbian publitn of any early years of the movement also faced some notable setbacks: the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn listed homosexualy as a form of mental disorr followg year, Print Dwight D. ”In fear of beg shut down by thori, bartenrs would ny drks to patrons spected of beg gay or kick them out altogether; others would serve them drks but force them to s facg away om other ctomers to prevent them om 1966, members of the Mattache Society New York Cy staged a “sip-”—a twist on the “s-” protts of the 1960s— which they vised taverns, clared themselv gay, and waed to be turned away so they uld sue. They were nied service at the Greenwich Village tavern Juli, rultg much publicy and the quick reversal of the anti-gay liquor Stonewall Inn A few years later, 1969, a now-famo event talyzed the gay rights movement: The Stonewall clanste gay club Stonewall Inn was an stutn Greenwich Village bee was large, cheap, allowed dancg and weled drag queens and homels the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York Cy police raid the Stonewall Inn.

THE EQUALY CLSE: GAY RIGHTS AND THE CONSTUTN

1 / 12: NY Daily News Archive/Getty ImagChristopher Street Liberatn Day Shortly after the Stonewall uprisg, members of the Mattache Society spl off to form the Gay Liberatn Front, a radil group that lnched public monstratns, protts and nontatns wh polil officials. Siar groups followed, cludg the Gay Activists Alliance, Radilbians, and Street Transvt Actn Revolutnari (STAR) 1970, at the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Rts, New York Cy muny members marched through lol streets memoratn of the event.

Addnally, several openly LGBTQ dividuals secured public office posns: Kathy Kozachenko won a seat to the Ann Harbor, Michigan, Cy Council 1974, beg the first out Amerin to be elected to public Milk, who mpaigned on a pro-gay rights platform, beme the San Francis cy supervisor 1978, beg the first openly gay man elected to a polil office asked Gilbert Baker, an artist and gay rights activist, to create an emblem that reprents the movement and would be seen as a symbol of pri. In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn published a report about five prevly healthy homosexual men beg fected wh a rare type of 1984, rearchers had intified the e of AIDS—the human immunoficiency vis, or HIV—and the Food and Dg Admistratn licensed the first mercial blood tt for HIV 1985.

CALIFORNIA VOTERS WILL BE ASKED TO REAFFIRM GAY MARRIAGE PROTECTNS ON 2024 BALLOT

But after failg to garner enough support for such an open policy, Print Clton 1993 passed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, which allowed gay men and women to serve the ary as long as they kept their sexualy a rights advot cried the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, as did ltle to stop people om beg discharged on the grounds of their 2011, Print Obama fulfilled a mpaign promise to repeal DADT; by that time, more than 12, 000 officers had been discharged om the ary unr DADT for refg to hi their sexualy. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was officially repealed on September 20, Marriage and Beyond In 1992, the District of Columbia passed a law that allowed gay and lbian upl to register as domtic partners, grantg them some of the rights of marriage (the cy of San Francis passed a siar ordance three years prr and California would later extend those rights to the entire state 1999) 1993, the hight urt  Hawaii led that a ban on gay marriage may go agast the state’s nstutn.

In 1994, a new anti-hate-crime law allowed judg to impose harsher sentenc if a crime was motivated by a victim’s sexual Matthew Shepard ActCourty of the Matthew Shepard FoundatnMatthew Shepard, who was btally killed a hate crime 2003, gay rights proponents had another b of happy news: the U. Gay rights proponents mt also ntent wh an creasg number of “relig liberty” state laws, which allow bs to ny service to LGBTQ dividuals due to relig beliefs, as well as “bathroom laws” that prevent transgenr dividuals om g public bathrooms that don’t rrpond to their sex at birth.

CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR

This book will be suable as eher the basic text of a one-semter urse or as a supplementary text for urs civil five origal scholarly says wrten by teemed nstutnal scholars, this book looks beyond judicial doctre and asks whether the current nstutnal stat of gay rights is nsistent wh prcipl that trace back to the Amerin Foundg and the Civil War Amendments and that ntue to animate Amerin polics. Although there is no current threat to the legaly of gay marriage, and Print Bin signed a bill safeguardg last year, the Democratic-domant state Legislature is seekg to remove language om California’s Constutn that still f marriage as between a man and outdated state fn has been emed unenforceable and unnstutnal thanks to feral law, but LGBTQ advocy groups are askg voters to repeal and amend the California Constutn to stead explicly state that marriage is “a fundamental right.

On May 21, 2009, the California Supreme Court closed another chapter the state’s long-nng fight over same-sex marriage when upheld a 2008 voter-approved ballot iative, known as Proposn 8, which amend the California state nstutn to ban gay marriage. Durg the 1970s, a gay rights movement, patterned many ways after the civil rights and women’s rights movements, veloped momentum as the sexual revolutn spurred new social and sexual mor, which turn prompted legislatur to repeal many state laws regulatg sexualy.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

In the Romer se, the urt nsired a challenge to an amendment to the Colorado Constutn (approved by the state’s voters 1992) that nullified lol anti-discrimatn protectns for homosexuals and prohibed passage of any such anti-discrimatn laws the future. The reasong the Goodridge and California cisns, however, differed one fundamental rpect: Whereas the Massachetts urt Goodridge found a right to same-sex marriage on the ground that there is no ratnal basis for nyg maral rights to same-sex upl, the California urt went signifintly further, elevatg gays and lbians to have the same protected legal stat as racial mori and women.

After upholdg Proposn 8, the urt turned s attentn to the stat of the 18, 000 gay and lbian upl who had legally wed durg the roughly five-month perd between the May 2008 high urt cisn legalizg same-sex marriage and the early November passage of the proposn banng .

GAY RIGHTS VS. FREE SPEECHSUPREME COURT BACKS WEB DIGNER OPPOSED TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

But the majory of the Connecticut Supreme Court disagreed, lg that offerg homosexual upl civil unns li of marriage amounts to unequal treatment “bee the stutn of marriage rri wh a stat and signifince that the newly created classifitn of civil unns do not embody. ” In addn, the Connecticut Supreme Court elevated the legal stat of gays and lbians, givg them greater protectn agast discrimatn than was granted the Massachetts cisn, but not the hight level of protectn that was tablished the California lg. And, as Connecticut, the urt Iowa tablished the “termediate strict scty” tt when asssg laws – cludg the DOMA – that discrimate agast gays and lbians, meang that the laws n only be upheld if they substantially further an important ernment tert.

Bee of such ncerns, a number of proment gay rights groups, such as the Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal, have publicly qutned the cisn by Olson and Boi to file the su, argug that such a se may be premature or even dangero to the succs of the same-sex marriage movement. Like Roberts and Alo, feral Judge Sonia Sotomayor – recently nomated by Print Barack Obama to replace retired Jtice David Souter – has had no role any major gay rights s, and th leav few clu as to her likely vote a se volvg the nstutnaly of same-sex marriage. While Kennedy’s opn Lawrence showed great sympathy for the gay rights movement, Kennedy also emphasized that, om a nstutnal perspective, the se did “not volve whether the ernment mt give formal regnn to any relatnship that homosexual persons seek to enter.

In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons.