Today, the Supreme Court held that a Massachusetts law creating a 35-foot buffer zone for patients at clinics that provide abortions was too broad, but affirmed that laws in line with the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act are valid, and implied that smaller anti-harassment zones could be valid. Buffer zones are important protectors of patient safety and clinic access, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights joined the National Women’s Law Center and several other...
Date
Month: June 2014
A year ago today, we celebrated a major tipping point in the movement for LGBTQ equality—a watershed United States Supreme Court decision that continues to impact the lives of same-sex couples across the country. The Supreme Court’s decision on June 26, 2013 striking down the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which barred the federal government from recognizing the marriages of same-sex couples, set off a legal tidal wave unlike anything we have seen before. Inspired by Justice...
Even as the LGBTQ community enjoys huge gains in understanding and acceptance. Even as we have key leaders from every sector and across every spectrum supporting our full equality and rejecting rank bigotry. Even as we seem closer than ever to winning the freedom to marry nationwide, a persistent and longstanding threat has reemerged. You have likely heard or read a chorus of anti-LGBTQ voices in the last few weeks supporting so-called “conversion therapy,” the vile practice used by some...
Last week, I was in a room of about 100 LGBTQ sports advocates and stakeholders at the 3rd annual LGBTQ Sports Coalition Summit hosted by Nike. Formalized in 2013, the LGBTQ Sports Coalition consists of nonprofit members, engaged individuals, and affiliates dedicated to ending homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in sports by 2016. We held our first informal convening in 2012. The summit only had about 30 participants that first year. Now, our summit is over 100 strong, representing advocates...
Ever since NCLR’s founding, we have been at the forefront of some of the most important legal cases in the history of the LGBTQ movement, from winning the freedom to marry in California, to securing critical protections for LGBTQ parents in courts around the country, and all the way to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court. But no year in our history has ever been quite like this one. The Supreme Court’s decision last summer striking down the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which...
