UK Conservatives drop conversion therapy ban
Chilean LGBT activists urge voters to reject new constitution that claws back rights
UK: Conservative Party backbenchers are threatening a rebellion over the government’s refusal to ban conversion therapy, as it has promised to do for the past five years. The rebels say they form a majority of the party, and are talking about forcing a bill to ban conversion therapy through Parliament over the government’s objections, with the support of the opposition Labour Party.
The ban did not make it into the King’s Speech today, which is a regular tradition in the UK where the King reads a statement of the government’s priorities for the coming term of Parliament (the tradition also holds in other Commonwealth Realms, where the speech is read by the Governor-General). To make it 100% clear, the speech is drafted by the Prime Minister’s office, and the King does not make any changes to it before reading it in Parliament.
Czechia: Activists are calling on the government to pass an inclusive hate crime law that has protections for LGBT people and people with disabilities, noting that Czechia is one of the few EU countries that does not have such protections.
Israel: The Knesset has amended the law recognizing the widows and widowers of deceased soldiers, allowing recognition for the first time of same-sex partners. A separate law was also passed that recognizes the families of hostages and missing persons as terrorism victims and includes same-sex partners as well.
It should be noted that the current Israeli government has fought tooth and nail against recognizing same-sex marriage, going so far as to push through reforms to the judicial system to take away the power of the courts to expand rights for LGBT people.
Chile: The country will vote on a new draft constitution Dec 17 to replace the dictatorship-era constitution. Last year, voters overwhelmingly rejected a new constitution that was considered too left-wing, while this draft has been criticized for going too far in the other direction.
A leading LGBT rights group Fundacion Iguales has already denounced the draft and is urging supporters to vote no, as the new draft contains no guarantees against discrimination and puts the right to abortion at risk. Polling suggests the referendum will likely fail.
Latvia: The civil partnership law passed another legislative hurdle today and heads to final reading on Thursday. It appears the committee examining it added a line clarifying that partnerships are not marriage, and removing any restrictions on close relations forming partnerships – but take that last bit with a grain of salt until I can find the final bill. I suspect that might be a mistranslation.
Meanwhile, in the States:
Virginia: The state government has conceded to a bigoted photographer who doesn’t want to photograph same-sex weddings. While the state’s Republican government is probably happy not to defend the state’s anti-discrimination law, the state likely didn’t have much legal ground to defend, after the US Supreme Court ruled similarly in 303 Creative earlier this year.
And it’s election day in several states! Don’t forget to vote if you live in Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Kentucky, or Mississippi, or any of the other states that have local or ballot question elections today! I’ll have more on what the results mean for LGBT people tomorrow.