The Democratic-led House is poised to pass a bill that would enshrine LGBTQ protections in the nation’s labor and civil rights laws, a top priority of President Joe Biden, though the legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate.
Two Indiana trial courts must reconsider parents’ requests to change their children’s birth certificate gender markers, a majority of the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday, finding parents have statutory authority to request the changes for their minor transgender children. A dissenting judge, however, opined that Wednesday’s decision was a judicial overreach into legislative powers.
A bill in the Legislature could reignite Indiana’s battle over birth certificates and possibly upend federal court rulings that allow married lesbian couples to have both their names listed as their children’s parents. Some attorneys, however, see numerous unintended consequences if the bill passes.
Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg won Senate approval Tuesday as transportation secretary, the first openly gay person to be confirmed to a Cabinet post. He’ll be tasked with advancing President Joe Biden’s ambitious agenda of rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure and fighting climate change.
In an order issued Monday, the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari in an Indiana birth certificate case, ending the state’s long-running fight to prevent non-birth mothers in same-sex marriages from being listed as a parent on their children’s birth certificates.
A four-member Indiana Supreme Court denied a petition Thursday filed by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis to stop the lawsuit brought by a social studies teacher who was fired from Cathedral High School for being in a same-sex marriage.
The Supreme Court declined Monday to take up an appeal from parents in Oregon who want to prevent transgender students from using locker rooms and bathrooms of the gender with which they identify, rather than their sex assigned at birth.
The married lesbian couples who successfully challenged Indiana’s prohibition on listing both women as parents on their children’s birth certificates have filed their brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, telling the justices not to bother with this long-running dispute.
The United States Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed likely to side with a Catholic social services agency in a dispute with Philadelphia over the agency’s refusal to work with same-sex couples as foster parents.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett is expected to join her Supreme Court colleagues on Monday to hear arguments for the first time. Participating in oral arguments will be among the first things Barrett, a former University of Notre Dame law professor, will do after being confirmed last week in a 52-48 virtual party-line vote.
Ruling the religious exemption in Title VII should be narrowly construed so as to avoid stripping employees of all protections against discrimination, the Southern Indiana District Court denied a motion for judgment on the pleadings by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis in a lawsuit brought by a guidance counselor who was fired from her job at Roncalli High School for being in a same-sex marriage.
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett served for nearly three years on the board of private Christian schools that effectively barred admission to children of same-sex parents and made it plain that openly gay and lesbian teachers weren’t welcome in the classroom.
The United States Supreme Court, already poised to take a significant turn to the right, opened its new term Monday with a jolt from two conservative justices who raised new criticism of the court’s embrace of same-sex marriage.
Indianapolis attorney Steve Tuchman and his husband, Reed Bobrick, have made a $4 million gift to Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law to support the creation of an endowed scholarship and an endowed professorship to further the institution’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Asserting the Archdiocese of Indianapolis made claims that are “irrelevant, inaccurate, misleading or make incorrect inferences,” the Marion Superior Court denied the church’s attempt to remove the special judge appointed to preside over the case involving the firing of a gay teacher at Cathedral High School. The judge did step aside, however, citing personal reasons.
The fight over a teacher at Cathedral High School who was fired for being in a same-sex marriage is highlighting a split between conservative and progressive members of the Catholic faith with several members of the Indiana legal community — including a former 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge and an Indiana attorney prominent in Republican politics — now adding their voices in opposition to the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.
A lawsuit challenging Indiana’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act will not proceed, for now, after the Indiana Court of Appeals declined to reverse summary judgment for four cities with nondiscrimination ordinances. The appellate panel found that the conservative organizations challenging the RFRA “fix” lacked standing to challenge the ordinances on free speech and religious exercise grounds.
Claiming the judiciary cannot interfere with church matters, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Indiana Attorney General have entered the fight between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis and a teacher who was dismissed from Cathedral High School in Indianapolis for being in a same-sex marriage.
Just as celebrations were starting over the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that Title VII protections cover transgender workers, another opinion from the nine justices shielded religious organizations from lawsuits by expanding the ministerial exception legal doctrine and injected more energy into potential religious liberty challenges to anti-discrimination laws.
Here is a summary of two major U.S. Supreme Court employment rulings regarding LBGTQ employees and the ministerial exception for religious employers from the October 2019 term.