By Lisa Keen on July 20, 2010
Both “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and same-sex marriage continued to be a prominent focus of the confirmation proceedings for Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court, as the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday recommended the confirmation.
Posted in Federal Courts, Issues, Law, News, Nominees, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on June 30, 2010
Never before in the history of Supreme Court confirmation hearings have gay issues played such a prominent role.
Posted in Don't Ask Don't Tell, Federal Courts, Issues, Law, News, Nominees, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on June 29, 2010
One message Republicans tried to hammer away at this week, in an effort to derail Elena Kagan’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, must have struck many LGBT viewers of her confirmation hearing as deeply ironic.
Posted in Federal Courts, Law, News, Nominees, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on June 28, 2010
For the second time in a week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion that delivered a small, indirect, and perhaps unfinished victory to policies that have benefited the LGBT community.
Posted in Federal Courts, Law, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on June 24, 2010
In a ruling hailed by gay activists, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that requires public disclosure of the names of people who signed a petition to put an anti-gay referendum on the ballot in Washington State. But litigation may not yet be finished.
Posted in Federal Courts, Law, News, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on June 24, 2010
The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld a law that requires public disclosure of the names of people who signed a petition to put an anti-gay referendum on the ballot in Washington State.
Posted in Federal Courts, Law, News, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on May 13, 2010
The number of results from a Google search of “Elena Kagan” plus the word “gay” more than doubled from 722,000 on Monday, when President Obama nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court, to 1,950,000 on Tuesday night, when Politico.com reported two friends said she is not gay.
Posted in Federal Courts, Law, News, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on May 11, 2010
Gay legal activists are applauding President Obama’s second nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court: Solicitor General Elena Kagan. But it could hardly be described as a standing ovation.
Posted in Federal Courts, Law, News, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on May 2, 2010
For the second time this month, the U.S. Supreme Court’s most conservative member, Justice Antonin Scalia, on Wednesday took a surprising position—one that is helpful to gay civil rights.
Posted in Federal Courts, Law, News, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on April 20, 2010
By the time a lawsuit reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, the facts of the conflict are rarely in dispute. But Monday’s oral argument at the Supreme Court revealed a great deal of confusion over those very basic facts of the case.
Posted in Law, News, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on April 15, 2010
The White House has begun floating trial balloons for candidates President Obama might appoint to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.
Posted in Federal Courts, Law, News, Politics, U.S. Supreme Court, White House
By Lisa Keen on April 11, 2010
Some court observers credit U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens with having forged a majority of the court to overturn laws banning private sexual relations between persons of the same sex—the most beneficial gay-related decision ever rendered by the Supreme Court.
Posted in Law, News, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on April 9, 2010
U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who turns 90 this month, announced today he will retire from the high court at the end of June. The potential impact of the retirement will be measured once President Obama nominates a replacement who is confirmed by the Senate.
Posted in Law, News, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on April 7, 2010
When Concerned Women of America, the Boy Scouts, and Evangelical Scholars line up on one side of a legal case, one might naturally assume that gay groups are lined up on the other side.
Christian Legal Society v. Martinez is not that case—at least not perfectly.
Posted in Law, News, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on March 11, 2010
The U.S. Supreme Court continues its unpredictable foray into LGBT-related legal conflicts—this week announcing that it will decide whether a protester has a First Amendment right to use a private funeral service as a staging ground for their hate speech against gays.
Posted in Federal Courts, Law, News, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on March 3, 2010
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday evening denied a request to stop Washington, D.C.’s new marriage equality law from going into effect Wednesday, March 3.
Posted in Ballot Measures, Federal Courts, Issues, Law, Marriage/Relationships, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on February 24, 2010
The battle over equal rights to marriage has dominated much of the news concerning the LGBT civil rights movement for the past 17 years, but there have been gains recently in the battle over gay family rights in general. And in just the past week, there were important developments in two significant courts.
Posted in A Closer Look, Cases, Federal Courts, Issues, Law, Lawsuits, News, State Courts, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on February 15, 2010
In just a couple of months, speculation concerning the retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens will once again rev up. He’ll turn 90 in April and, last fall when justices typically do, he did not hire a full complement of clerks for the 2010-11 session.
Posted in A Closer Look, Federal Courts, Law, News, U.S. Supreme Court
By Lisa Keen on January 17, 2010
In its second surprise move in a week, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday announced it would review another narrow dispute involving anti-gay activists’ alleged fear of harassment over their public opposition to legal recognition for same-sex relationships.
Posted in Cases, Federal Courts, Issues, Law, U.S. Supreme Court
ENDA prospects apparently gone
DADT trial opens to little notice
Two giant blows against DOMA
Movement to ban gay adoption: sacrificing the well-being of children