Supreme Court Rules Against LGBTQ Community in
JUNE 30, 2023 The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a graphic designer who denied service to samesex couples. In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the Court ruled that the First Amendment protected Lorie Smith, who didn’t want to make wedding websites for same-sex couples despite Colorado’s nondiscrimination law, which bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
“The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority 6–3 decision.
The three dissenting, liberal justices called the decision “unprecedented” and said in their dissent that the decision deems the LGBTQ community as second-class citizens.
“Today the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Today is a sad day in American constitutional law and in the lives of LGBT people. The immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status.” finalized guidelines for blood donation issued in May that use a uniform individualized risk assessment questionnaire for respondents regardless of their sexual orientation, sex, or gender.
The FDA’s new protocols establish that prospective donors who have had a new sexual partner, or more than one sexual partner in the past three months, and anal sex in the past three months, would be ineligible.
So would those who are “taking medications to treat or prevent HIV infection (e.g., antiretroviral therapy, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis,” because these drugs can delay the detection of HIV.
System and the Summary Reporting System, which the FBI says collectively accounts for 93.5 percent of the U.S. population.
The data showed the increases in antiLGBTQ hate crimes came despite a decrease, by 6.1 percent, of estimated murder and nonnegligent manslaughter cases during this same period.
HRC reported that more than 20 percent of reported hate crimes are now motivated by anti-LGBTQ bias, amid a “horrifying wave” of fatal violence against, particularly, Black transgender women. her state senate seat in Delaware in 2020).
Bisexual African American state delegate candidate Joshua Cole was the dramatic 51st Democrat when his victory gave Democrats the one-seat majority they needed to keep control of the Virginia House of Delegates.
All seven LGBTQ candidates for the Virginia House of Delegates won their seats that night, and only two of those seven were incumbents.
In Mississippi, openly gay candidate Fabian Nelson won his primary in August and was unopposed in the general election for the state House of Representatives. Nelson is the first openly LGBTQ state legislator in Mississippi history.
In Miami Beach, which includes the popular LGBTQ destination South Beach, openly gay Michael Gongora won the right to face another top contender in a runoff to become mayor of Miami Beach. Gongora lost the runoff election on November 21.
In Portland, Maine, openly gay mayoral candidate Andrew Zarro forced the race’s leading candidate into a ranked-choice tabulation of the votes. Zarro had been serving on the Portland City Council. Zarro was defeated by Mark Dion in the rankedchoice runoff.