Kentucky Clerk thinks she'll overturn same-sex marriage, again
Bangladesh Supreme Court orders jobs quote for third-gender people
Malawi: Here’s a report on how LGBT people face obstacles accessing health care, with a quote from a legislator who says openly that he supports repealing the country’s sodomy law, but won’t put forward a bill because voters would punish him.
Uganda: A challenge to last year’s Anti-Homosexuality Act has been filed with the Supreme Court.
Zimbabwe: Parliament was set to hold a second debate on the capital punishment abolition bill Tuesday. I can’t find any record of what transpired.
Unfortunately, parliament was also scheduled to debate a motion ”to pass a law prohibiting foreign entities from promoting LGBTQI+1 [sic] activities and condemning those activities.”
Canada: Fort Edmonton Park in Alberta has a new exhibit honoring the history of the city’s 2SLGBTQIA community.
Meanwhile, a survey of 2SLGBTQIA members of the Squamish Nation in British Columbia has found that community members still frequently feel excluded and need more supports.
Bangladesh: The Supreme Court has set a 1% quota of government jobs that must be given to third-gender people and people with other physical challenges.
Ireland: Efforts to ban conversion therapy have stalled, with the minister in charge of drafting the bill saying it is unlikely to be introduced before the next election in March.
UK: Scotland’s first minister is considering abandoning its own proposed conversion therapy ban legislation in favor of accepting the conversion therapy ban that is being prepared by the UK government for England and Wales.
United Nations: The Human Rights High Commissioner and the head of UNAIDS have jointly reiterated a call for countries to decriminalize homosexuality.
Meanwhile in the States…
The federal Department of Justice has filed a request for the Supreme Court to take emergency action to restore the Biden administration’s interpretation of Title IX, extending protections for LGBTQ students in all schools. Lower courts have blocked the rule in many Republican-led states.
Smart money is that the Court denies the request, since it would be a victory for Biden. But ultimately, I find it hard to see how the court upholds the lower courts’ rulings, given that Biden’s Title IX interpretation is based directly on this court’s ruling in Bostock which found that a bar on sex discrimination includes a bar on sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination.
New Hampshire: The ACLU and other groups are considering legal action to block a trio of anti-trans bills that were signed into law last week.
Kentucky: Kim Davis is back in headlines, appealing a civil suit that ordered her to pay $100,000 (plus $250,000 in legal fees) to the couple she denied a marriage license to way back in 2015 when she was a very memeable county clerk. Her lawyers, affiliated the hate group Liberty Counsel, are claiming she should be granted relief because of her religious objection to marriage and are claiming that their case could overturn Obergefell itself. While I hesitate to put anything past the Republican thugs on this Supreme Court, I also don’t think it’s likely that this case would get close to overturning same-sex marriage, since the right to marriage isn’t actually at issue in this case.