U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor (D. Mass.) has refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed on behalf of Sexual Minorities Uganda, a gay rights group, against Scott Lively, described in the complaint as an attorney, author, and evangelical minister who has allegedly work to “foment” what the plaintiff alleges to be “an atmosphere of harsh and frightening repression against LGBTI people in Uganda.” Ponsor found that the allegations in the complaint were sufficient to put … <Read More>
Legal Issues
Gay Middle School Teacher Loses Job Over Computer Carelessness
The California 4th District Court of Appeal affirmed a ruling by San Diego County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey B. Barton that a gay middle school teacher in the San Ysidro Unified School District exhibited “evident and characteristic unfitness for service” because of the way he used his classroom computer. The court rulings overturned a decision by a unanimous three-member panel of the Commission on Professional Competence, which had voted to dismiss all disciplinary charges against … <Read More>
Circuit Split May Take Religious Exemption Issue to Supreme Court
A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled on July 26 that a for-profit business corporation has no right to free exercise of religion under the 1st Amendment, rejecting a contrary doctrine that had been adopted by the 9th and 10th Circuits and setting up the possibility that the Supreme Court may intervene on a question that has become very salient in the context of marriage equality: Can business
… <Read More> Court Awards Survivor’s Benefits to Same-Sex Spouse
U.S. District Judge C. Darnell Jones, II (E.D.Pa.), ruled July 29 that the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) should be construed, now that DOMA Section 3 has been declared unconstitutional, to recognize a same-sex marriage for purposes of an employee benefit plan when the married couple resided in a state that recognized the validity of the marriage. The ruling means that Jennifer J. Tobits will be entitled to a survivor’s benefit under the … <Read More>
9th Circuit Orders Withholding of Removal for Gay Man from Philippines
A unanimous panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, ruled on July 24 in Vitug v. Holder, 2013 Westlaw 3814772, that the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) should not have reversed a ruling by an Immigration Judge (IJ) that Dennis Vitug, a gay man from the Philippines, was entitled to remain in the United States under U.S. laws providing refuge for people subjected to persecution in their home countries. … <Read More>
Ohio Federal Judge Orders Recognition of Same-Sex Marriage
U.S. District Judge Timothy S. Black has ordered that a Cincinnati same-sex couple married in Maryland is entitled to a temporary restraining order requiring the local Ohio Registrar of death certificates in Cincinnati to record them as married when one, fatally ill, passes away. The July 22 ruling followed a dramatic trip on July 11 by James Obergefell and John Arthur in a special medically-equipped jet to an airport in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, where … <Read More>
Confusion over Jury Charge Causes Reversal in New York Hate Crime Conviction
Jury confusion about how to deal with a defendant charged under New York’s hate crime statute has resulted in an appellate ruling setting aside the guilty verdict in hate crime homicide as “inconsistent” in People of New York v. Delee, 2013 WL 3766913 (Appellate Division, 4th Dep’t., July 19, 2013).
Dwight R. Delee shot and killed a victim identified by the court as “a young man who dressed as a woman and was known … <Read More>
4th Circuit Panel Acquits Gay Man Arrested in North Carolina Sting Operation
Reversing decisions by U.S. District Judge Martin K. Reidiner and a U.S. Magistrate Judge, a three-judge panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to acquit a gay man who had been convicted of disorderly conduct for groping an undercover federal ranger who had targeted him in a vice sting operation in November 2009 at the Sleepy Gap Overlook of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Buncombe County, North Carolina, near the city … <Read More>
Immigration Review Panel Announces Same-Sex Marriage Recognition Rule
Shortly after the Supreme Court held Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional on June 26 in U.S. v. Windsor, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that the immigration service under her department would recognize same-sex marriages that were valid where they were performed, using the “place of celebration rule.” But her announcement, which varied from standard practice of considering whether a marriage was recognized where the couple was residing, … <Read More>
Justice Department Finds ATF Discriminated Unlawfully in Transgender Discrimination Case
The Justice Department’s Complaint Adjudication Office (CAO) issued a decision on July 8 holding that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in 2011 when it denied a position as a contract Ballistics Forensic Technician to an applicant who was in the process of transitioning from male to female. In its first such ruling, the CAO applied an earlier decision in the case by the … <Read More>