Search

Presents a chart showing the court decisions of United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. How her judgments have varied over time; Her stance on key issues, such as abortion, gay rights and religion.

Reports on various court rulings concerning gay rights in the U.S. Effect of the U.S. Supreme Court sodomy case Lawrence v. Texas on other cases; Reasons for why the 11th U.S. circuit court of appeals ruled that gay men and lesbians in Florida could not adopt children; Sentence given by a Kansas state appeals court to Matthew R. Limon for having consensual oral sex with a male minor. INSETS: KANSAS V. MATTHEW LIMON;COMMONWEALTH V. SINGSON;LOFTON V. KEARNY.

The article charges that the U.S. Supreme Court is engaged in the process of undermining democracy under Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia uses his acerbic style to destroy the logic of Supreme Court opinions. His disparagement of the views held by his colleagues has sometimes almost turned into personal insult. He has deconstructed the arguments of the Court in several significant rulings and revealed where he thought the majority's agenda is placed. It was in the area of moral concern and community mores that the Court showed what Scalia finds so biased and objectionable. In the cases dealing with gay rights and male-only military education, Scalia discerned a scheme by a privileged elite to impose its moral views.

The article discusses how the various American states such as Utah must deal with religious and gay rights in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the same-sex marriage case Obergefell v. Hodges in June 2015. According to the article, 21 American states have passed religious freedom restoration acts (RFRAs). The legal rights of LGBT people are examined, along with the U.S. Equality Act legislative bill which was introduced by Democrats in the nation's Congress in July 2015.

The article reports on the New Jersey Supreme Court's ruling on October 25, 2006 that same-sex couples are entitled to legal recognition and to the same benefits that heterosexual couples acquire through marriage. The court has given lawmakers to 180 days to rewrite the laws to give equal benefits to same-sex couples.

This article focuses on the legalization of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts and the impending battle between gay activists and social conservatives. Seldom in recent times has a clerical act inspired so much jubilation. One second past midnight on May 17th, gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts, and same-sex couples began to fill out marriage licence applications in Cambridge City Hall, specially opened for the occasion. War is an appropriate metaphor. Supporters, pointing out that May 17th was the 50th anniversary of Brown v Board of Education, claim the ceremonies in Massachusetts mark the biggest advance in civil rights since racial segregation was abolished. Conservatives, who see "the end of western civilisation" in the marriages, look back to 1973 and another Supreme Court ruling: Roe v Wade, which legalised abortion and started a culture war that has lasted for 30 years. Certainly, the full legalisation of gay marriage in Massachusetts took many liberal activists by surprise. Many assumed Vermont's civil unions (non-marriages with most of the legal advantages) would be the best they could get. The right's reaction was less militant than might have been expected. Yet the counterattack is only just around the corner and may precipitate years of conflict. Only a handful of liberal states, including Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York, have suggested they might honour same-sex marriages performed in Massachusetts.

The article focuses on the rights of gay people and concludes that the law of the U.S. has not accepted them as full citizens. The verdict by the New York Court of Appeals that gay parenting is unhealthy for children, the author says, made so little sense. He has after the verdict started rallying fellow gay New Yorkers. They think that the recent rulings in New York, California, and Washington reveal real life consequences for the gay community. The death of Eric Rofe, a gay activist in Provincetown and the subsequent events have made the community more saddened. When his long time partner Crispin asked for an autopsy he was told that he would need Eric's mother's authorization. When he asked for a funeral of Eric choice, he was given the same answer again.

The article reports on the decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeals regarding the right to women-only policy. The British Columbia Court of Appeals had ruled out that the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter (VRR) has the right to accept only women to volunteer to counsel women. The ruling overturned a previous judgment by the Human Rights Tribunal that VRR could not discriminate Kimberly Nixon as a volunteer. Nixon is the transsexual-complainant in a case against VRR.

This section presents an update on issues related to gay rights in the U.S. as of March 1, 2005. The gay rights group Your Family, Friends, and Neighbors on January 20, 2005 took out advertisements in several statewide newspapers advocating civil unions, in anticipation of a legislative debate over the definition of marriage in the state constitution of Idaho. Arkansas' Department of Human Services announced it would stop asking potential adoptive or foster parents if they are gay or lesbian, in response to a county judge's December 2004 ruling striking down the state's ban on gay foster parents. The 100-year-old Episcopal Church of the Redeemer in Rochester, New Hampshire stated that it would close its doors in May 2005 due to the loss of membership in the wake of the election of gay New Hampshire bishop V. Gene Robinson in 2003. Marshall County, Alabama sheriff Mac Holocomb has removed a letter from a county-sponsored web site in which he condemned homosexuality as an abomination after receiving a complaint from former Alabama resident Don Hunter.

The article presents the author's comments on the controversy surrounding the decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in favor of same-sex marriage. The author explores reasons why both the Republicans and the Democrats have been reluctant to call for a constitutional amendment outlawing gay marriage. The author presents the details of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 of the U.S. Dramatic revisions are coming from several anthropologists who are calling to abandon the institution of marriage altogether.

Reports that U.S. President George W. Bush, announced his first strong position on the controversial issue of gay marriage on July 30, 2003 when, after paraphrasing the Bible in an attempt to encourage tolerance of gays and lesbians, he stated his opposition to gay marriage. Recent decisions in North American courts in favor of homosexual marriages; Debate caused by a flurry of television shows with gay themes; Decline in support for gay rights reported by polls; Statement issued by the Vatican opposing gay marriages and gay adoption.

This article presents the author's views on a paper by Andrew Sullivan's related to homosexuals that was published in the August 28, 1989 issue of the periodical "The New Republic." In this paper, he urges that homosexuals be enabled to marry one another. He was inspired by a New York court's decision which stated that the survivor should be allowed to live in the rent-controlled apartment he had shared with his deceased lover, because the homosexual couple constituted a family. Sullivan objected to the court's flexible and arbitrary definition of family. According to him, homosexual marriage could serve only to morally legitimize a homosexual relationship.

This section presents selected lower court rulings in the U.S. that evidence an impact on human and civil rights issues. In the case Chicoine v. Chicoine, the South Dakota Supreme Court, citing a mother's open lesbian behavior, remanded a trial court's order allowing the woman restricted visits with her two children. The justices cited several decisions from other states that hold a parent's sexual behavior does have relevance in deciding the scope and nature of visitation rights. In the case U.S. v. Minsky, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati, Ohio, ruled that a talk between a prosecutor and a judge violated the constitutional rights of a defendant whose attorney was not present. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit directly affects the state of Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee and is likely to be closely scrutinized by other circuits. In the case, Jane Doe v. George D. Small, a Chicago, Illinois, federal appeals court reversed a trial judge's order banning a Christian display from a public park in Ottawa, Illinois. The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ban on the display was too severe and unduly penalized the Jaycees, who sponsored the annual display.