President Obama plans to give what the White House is billing as an address regarding the need for comprehensive immigration reform at American University in the District on Thursday morning, July 1. Today, The Wall Street Journal reported that New York City Michael Bloomberg would be among those in attendance.

One of the questions is the extent to which the president will discuss the Uniting American Families Act, which provides family protections for binational couples, and several other legislative immigration issues of concern to some of the LGBT community, from student issues to asylum concerns.

Steve Ralls, communications director for Immigration Equality, sent the following statement to Metro Weekly on Wednesday afternoon regarding Thursday's speech:

Immigration Equality has been invited by the White House to join the President for tomorrow’s remarks.  We do not have an advance copy of the President’s speech, but our hope and understanding is that he plans to make speak out strongly in favor of tackling comprehensive immigration reform soon.  As the current Congress enters its final months of work, President Obama’s speech can be instrumental in ensuring this issue remains on the radar, and agenda, of lawmakers.  Our hope is that President Obama will indeed identify immigration reform as a priority for his Administration, and this Congress, this year.

Immigration Equality, and LGBT immigrants and their families, will be listening closely tomorrow.  For the families we work with, time is of the essence.  Each day that Congress fails to act, LGBT families move closer to separation, or spend another day in exile.

There are a number of important immigration issues the LGBT community cares about, including issues related to humane detention standards, a path to citizenship for undocumented LGBT people, asylum for those persecuted because of sexual orientation and gender identity, and family unification for binational couples.  Our hope is that Congress, spurred by a commitment from the President tomorrow, will work to pass a comprehensive bill that positively addresses those critical issues.

One group that might not agree is GOProud, which opposed the recent move by the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce to boycott Arizona because of its recently passed immigration law. Executive director Jimmy LaSalvia said in a statement on Wednesday:

The decision by the leadership of the gay left to support the Arizona boycott over an issue totally unrelated to gay rights shows just how beholden they are to the union bosses.

The Arizona boycott is being spear-headed by the Service Employees International Union, and the law at the center of the boycott has nothing even tangentially to do with the rights of gay and lesbian Americans lawfully in this country.  The decision to participate in this boycott, over the objections of local groups like the Greater Phoenix Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, puts the interests of organized labor over those of the gay and lesbian Arizonans hurt by this protest.

Whether it’s current boycotts, like the Arizona boycott or the boycott of the Manchester Hyatt in San Diego, or previous boycotts, like the boycott of Coor’s Brewing – Gay, Inc. is always willing to do the bidding of the big union bosses, regardless of its impact on gays and lesbians.

Between the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and marriage questions, there was quite a bit of talk about LGBT issues in the third day of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings for Supreme Court nominee and Solicitor General Elena Kagan.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) discussed DADT legal challenges with Kagan for nearly 15 minutes. Metro Weekly covered the exchange in "Kagan's DADT Dance."

Later, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) asked about same-sex marriage, referencing Kagan's written answer to Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tx.) about whether the constitution recognizes sam-sex marriage. Kagan's response at the time: "There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage."

In response to Kyl's questioning about whether she meant that the law currently contains no such federal right or whether it meant there had not yet been found such a right, Kagan did not respond directly becuase such a case is likely to come before the court. She did note that the purpose of Cornyn's question at the time -- and her answer -- related to whether she would be willing to defend the law.

Also, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) returned to the topic of Sessions's questioning on Tuesday: Harvard Law School's policy toward military recruitment.

Finally, toward the end of the senators' questioning, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) referenced marriage cases.

Kagan's time before the committee ended a little past 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. Witnesses supporting and opposing Kagan's nomination will begin being heard by the committee on Thursday.

Following the death of Robert Byrd, the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, on Monday, the state's secretary of state determined that the governor will appoint a replacement to serve until a special election is held in 2012.

Stonewall Democrats quickly jumped into action, urging that Bryd be replaced by a pro-LGBT equality appointment. In a release and email to supporters, Stonewall Democrats executive director Michael Mitchell wrote on Tuesday, June 29:

Democratic West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin will be appointing Senator Byrd's replacement. The people of West Virginia -- and all Americans -- deserve a new Senator as dedicated as Senator Byrd. We also deserve a Senator who believes in the fundamental equality of all people regardless of sexual orientation, as Senator Byrd had come to by the end of his life.

Tell Governor Manchin to appoint a pro-equality Senator to replace Senator Byrd.

Over the course of his life, Senator Byrd’s views, like those of many Americans, evolved on the issue of LGBT equality and he stood up for LGBT West Virginians when he voted to reverse "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

West Virginia deserves better than a step backwards. Urge Governor Manchin to appoint a pro-equality Senator to fill Senator Byrd’s seat.

It is not yet known who will be selected for the appointment.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion (pdf) released on Wednesday, June 30, upheld the validity of the state's constitutional amendment relating to marriage in a technical challenge that did not address equal protection or due process rights that are a part of most marriage restriction challenges.

The amendment, adopted by the voters in 2006, reads:

Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be  valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.  A  legal status identical or substantially similar to  that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not  be valid or recognized in this state.

The technical question about the two-sentence amendment was whether it violated the "separate amendment" rule of the state's constitution. As the court held today:

We hold that Article XIII, Section 13 of the Wisconsin  Constitution — the marriage amendment — was adopted in conformity  with the separate amendment rule in Article XII, Section 1 of  the Wisconsin Constitution, which mandates that voters must be  able to vote separately on separate amendments. Both sentences  of the marriage amendment relate to marriage and tend to effect  or carry out the same general purpose of preserving the legal  status of marriage in Wisconsin as between only one man and one  woman.

Because the challenge was based solely on state constitutional grounds and no federal constitutional challenged was raised in the case, the matter cannot be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The first explicit mention of same-sex marriage at the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Solicitor General Elena Kagan came in an exchange with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) in which he was asking "What is the makeup of Elena Kagan?" The C-SPAN video is not available at this time, but grainy video of the question period for Coburn can be found here.

Coburn: I know what a liberal is, and I think you’re a liberal … You’re very pro-choice. You believe in a woman’s right to choose. You believe in gender-mixed marriages, or gay marriage. You believe that states oughta recognize those throughout. If I say something that is inappropriate, please tell me.

Kagan: Senator Coburn, I suppose what I would wanna say at this point is that the way I would vote as a legislator with respect to any or all of those issues is a very different –

Coburn: I’m not trying to label as a judge. … I’m not saying you aren’t going to have the capability to separate those positions. But it is important … I’m not saying that that will limit you’re ability to make great decisions as a jurist, and I wanna separate that right now. But the American people deserve to know: What is the makeup of Elena Kagan?

It’s not unfair to say who you are, but you’re different than me and you’re different than many of the people I represent.

The second day of the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Solicitor General Elena Kagan began on Tuesday morning, June 29, with questions from Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Ranking Republican Member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).

Sessions spent much of his time (video here) with Kagan on Tuesday morning -- more than 22 minutes -- discussing the issue of military recruiting at Harvard Law School, of which Kagan served as dean before joining the Obama administration in 2009. The military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy conflicted with the school's nondiscrimination policy.

The Solomon Amendment responded to this conflict, which happened at many law schools across the country, by requiring that military recruiters receive equal access to that given to other employers. Harvard Law School had traditionally allowed access to the school through the campus veterans group, but not through the career services office. It later, at the urging of the Department of Defense (DOD), allowed full access to the career services office. Then, after the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Solomon Amendment was unconstitutional, Harvard reverted to the original policy of utilizing the veterans group. After DOD intervention, several months later Harvard went back to giving full access to the career services office. Later, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Rumsfeld v. FAIR, upheld the Solomon Amendment as constitutional.

Sessions began by discussing Kagan's opposition to the military policy, asking Kagan, "You personally opposed the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and felt strongly about it, did you not?"

Kagan: I do oppose the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy --

Sessions: And you did then.

Kagan: I did then.

Sessions then descibed the email Kagan sent, as dean, to the student body, detailing her opposition to the policy.

Kagan: Senator Sessions, I have repeatedly said that I believe the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is unwise and unjust. I believed it then, and I believe it now. We were trying to do two things: We were trying to make sure that military recruiters had full and complete access to our students, and we also were trying to protect our own antidriscrimination policy and to protect the students to whom -- who the policy is supposed to protect, which in this case, were our gay and lesbian students. And we tried to do both of those things.

Sessions: Well, you couldn't do both, as it became clear as time went on.

Later, Sessions and Kagan addressed the specifics of Harvard's reaction to the Solomon Amendment.

In the opening statements of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, on Monday, June 28, only one senator gave even a hint of a mention at marriage equality. The mention came from Maryland's own Sen. Ben Cardin (D). In his opening, he said:

If you believe that you have a right to fall in love and get married to whomever you wish, you are mostly correct, but only because the Supreme Court intervened on the side of the American people when it ruled in Loving vs. Virginia that inter-racial couples could marry. Indeed prior to that decision, the parents of the current President of the United States and some members of this United States Senate could not have been married in some states of this nation.

If you believe that what you do in your own home, in your own bedroom, is your business and no one else’s – especially not the government’s – you also are correct, but only because Supreme Court decisions like Griswold v. Connecticut and Lawrence v. Texas reinforced the individual’s right to privacy, keeping government out of the private consensual activities of adults.

Although Kagan's opposition to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was a prominent topic of discussion on Tuesday morning, marriage equality has not yet been raised in the question-and-answer portion of the hearings. Cardin, however, is expected to question Kagan this afternoon.