American Bar Association headquarters – Photo: Tony Webster, via Wikimedia.
The American Bar Association has passed a resolution affirming that LGBTQ individuals are entitled to dignity and equal treatment under the law.
Resolution 113, approved by the ABA’s House of Delegates at its midyear meeting in Las Vegas on Monday, marks a significant endorsement by a major legal organization recognizing the “fundamental right” of LGBTQ people to parent and raise children free from discrimination or other form of hindrance by the government.
The resolution also calls on lawmakers in jurisdictions where anti-LGBTQ parenting and adoption laws remain in place to repeal such policies, and encourages Bar associations and attorneys to defend any victims of this type of discrimination.
The National LGBT Bar Association, which had encouraged the ABA to pass the resolution, issued a statement saying it was “delighted and proud that the American Bar Association has recognized the fundamental right of all Americans to parent, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” adding: “We are one step closer to full equality under the law with the passage of Resolution 113.”
According to the Movement Advancement Project, 10 states currently have laws in place that allow child placement agencies to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals or same-sex couples who wish to adopt or serve as foster parents.
Recently, South Carolina applied for and was granted a waiver by the federal government that allows child placement agencies in the state to discriminate against any prospective parents who do not adhere to an individual agency’s set of beliefs.
Media advocacy organization GLAAD also praised the passage of the ABA resolution.
“The American Bar Association not only voiced its support for LGBTQ families, but they just took an important stand that could accelerate acceptance for LGBTQ families everywhere,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, said in a statement. “As the Trump administration tries to erase LGBTQ Americans at every turn, the ABA’s resolution stands to change the conversation on how LGBTQ-based policies are litigated in a court room and in state and federal governments.”
In what came as no surprise to astute political observers, LGBTQ groups pummeled former President Donald Trump for selecting U.S. Senator J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate.
The Ohio Republican, who will turn 40 in August, is a Yale-educated, self-acclaimed populist who has become known best for his hatred of the political Left, support of natalist domestic policies, and archconservative stances on social issues, particularly concerning the LGBTQ community.
As expected, LGBTQ advocates and allies -- many of whom already hold Trump in contempt -- saw the Vance pick as doubling down on the anti-LGBTQ policies that Trump promoted when he was last in the Oval Office.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg smacked down Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance with a simple message: Stop talking about other people's families.
Appearing on CNN's "The Source" with Kaitlan Collins, Buttigieg responded to past comments in which the Republican asserted that prominent Democrats -- including Buttigieg, Vice President Kamala Harris, and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- shouldn't be allowed to set policy if they don't have children of their own.
"We're effectively run in this country...by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too," Vance told Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a 2021 interview, clips of which have been circulating since the Ohio senator was tapped as Donald Trump's running mate.
GLAAD, the world's largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, has launched a national ad campaign to warn about "Project 2025," which lays out a policy agenda for the next Republican president to pursue within the first six months after being sworn into power.
The aim of Project 2025 is to completely remake the U.S. government, shaping it into a right-wing autocracy, with a unitary executive in the White House, a suppliant federal workforce full of appointees loyal to the president, and the erosion of checks and balances by weakening the power of the judicial and legislative branches of government.
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