The Fight for Marriage in Broad, Informed Context
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE | In 2009, attorneys Ted Olson and David Boies vowed to take a legal challenge to Proposition 8, a 2008 California ballot initiative that barred same-sex marriage in that state, to the US Supreme Court and win marriage for gay and lesbian couples in all 50 states. What they won there in […]
How Texas Governor Hopes to Undo Marriage Equality
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD | Conservatives eager to bring the marriage equality issue back to the US Supreme Court after President Donald Trump has the opportunity to appoint some right-leaning justices may have found a vehicle in an employee benefits dispute from Houston. On January 20, Inauguration Day, the Texas Supreme Court announced it had “withdrawn” its […]
He’s Been Our President
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | Too cerebral. Unwilling to engage in bare-knuckles political war with his Republican enemies. Naïve, in fact, about his ability to find common ground with a GOP determined to undermine, even delegitimize him from Day 1. Those are the typical knocks – especially from progressives – aimed at Barack Obama, the first […]
Love’s Second Chance
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | “I lived with a spectacular woman for 40 years, and now I live with another one. It didn’t occur to me that I would find another person in my life. It didn’t occur to me that I would have another such love in my life.” That was Edie Windsor last week, talking […]
Edie Windsor Weds Judith Kasen
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | Edie Windsor, the heroic marriage equality plaintiff who successfully challenged the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, got married this week at City Hall in New York. On September 26, Windsor, 87, wed Judith Kasen, who is a vice president at Wells Fargo. Windsor arrived before the Supreme Court in […]
Defying the First Amendment, Mississippi Enacts “Freedom of Conscience” Law
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD | Mississippi Republican Governor Phil Bryant, on April 5, signed into law the Protecting Freedom of Conscience From Government Discrimination Act, a measure that received overwhelming approval in both houses of the state legislature. The law is clearly intended to encourage businesses and individuals in the state to discriminate against same-sex […]
District Court Finally Resolves Puerto Rico Marriage Equality Challenge
BY ARTHUR S. LEONARD | In something of a judicial anti-climax, US District Judge Gustavo A. Gelpi, on April 7, declared the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s statutory ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Puerto Rico’s government has been complying with the Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling since last summer while awaiting action in the local lawsuit pending […]
Antonin Scalia, Determined Foe of Gay Rights Advances, Dies at 79
BY PAUL SCHINDLER | News of the sudden death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at age 79 is sure to set off a huge political battle over President Barack Obama’s constitutional duty to nominate a successor for him. With Senate Republicans likely to try to play out the clock on the president’s final year […]
