The National LGBT Bar Association has launched a new campaign asking attorneys across the nation to repudiate anti-LGBTQ legal groups and pledge not to support them through pro bono services.
The Commit to Inclusion campaign, which runs through Sept. 27, focuses on combating the efforts of groups like Alliance Defending Freedom and Liberty Counsel, which have been behind many of the legal efforts to undermine or repeal advances in LGBTQ equality.
“For more than 25 years, groups like Alliance Defending Freedom and Liberty Counsel have overseen an army of litigators and waged a systematic, insidious, and well-funded crusade to strip protections from LGBT people,” D’Arcy Kemnitz, the executive director of the LGBT Bar Association, said in a statement.
“With the recent Supreme Court decision in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, the announced retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, and more and more court victories for those seeking a license to discriminate, fair-minded attorneys committed to diversity must push back. If we don’t take these threats seriously and act accordingly, we could face long term legal setbacks for LGBT people.”
The campaign includes a downloadable fact sheet detailing the history of the two organizations, their budgets, and a list of the cases where they’ve attacked LGBTQ rights. For example, ADF was behind efforts to ban marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges and to allow small business owners to claim their religious beliefs exempt them from having to abide by nondiscrimination laws, as in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.
Meanwhile, Liberty Counsel has been behind efforts to stop school districts from adopting pro-LGBTQ nondiscrimination policies, as in the case of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum v. Montgomery County Public Schools. It has also pushed to keep in place regulations barring transgender children from facilities that match their gender identity, as in the case involving Virginia teenager Gavin Grimm‘s lawsuit against the Gloucester County School Board.
The National LGBT Bar Association also released a one-minute video on Tuesday to educate people about the Commit to Inclusion campaign, and asking lawyers or law firms to sign a pledge that reads: “We commit to inclusion by ensuring that our personal pro bono and volunteer capacity and personal financial resources will not be used to support the work of ADF and Liberty Counsel.”
Kemnitz notes that some of the top global law firms often provide pro bono services to legal organizations seeing to undertake major cases. But the LGBT Bar Association is asking those law firms, and the lawyers who work for them, to closely examine the records of those organizations before assisting them.
“We think individual lawyers need to know who ADF, Liberty Counsel, and groups like them are, and the kinds of cases they have brought,” Kemnitz tells Metro Weekly. “We want people to know what’s behind the name.”
Some conservative legal organizations may allege that the Commit to Inclusion campaign is engaging in bullying or censorship of some kind. But Kemnitz rejects such characterizations.
“What we’re asking for is for law firms to use their discretion. It’s up to a law firm’s discretion who they’ll give away their services to,” she says. “And we ask that, should they get requests from groups like ADF and Liberty Counsel, to give it a pass.
“With criminal law, you do have a right to an attorney when charged with a crime. But this is a different type of situation. We’re talking about big global civil law firms who have every discretion in deciding where to put their resources,” Kemnitz adds. “Fingers crossed, we hope we’re going to get a good response from individuals who went to law school who are committed to upholding the U.S. Constitution and everything it stands for. We hope they’ll sign on with our campaign.”
The owner of a popular gay bar in the Russian city of Orenburg was arrested for "extremism" last week, just a few weeks after the club's art director and manager were arrested on similar charges.
Vyacheslav Khasanov, the owner of the LGBTQ nightclub Pose, was detained at the Moscow airport on March 29 and taken into custody, accused of "organizing the work of an extremist cell," according to Mediazona.
The club, which opened in 2021, regularly hosted drag parties. After the adoption of Russia's expanded law barring "LGBT propaganda," it marketed itself as a "bar-theater of parodies" and "a night bar with a show program."
One Million Moms is accusing the Hilton hotel chain of attempting to "glamorize sin" for portraying people wearing gender-nonconforming attire and including a shot of a same-sex couple in one of its advertisements.
The commercial features hotel heiress Paris Hilton walking through a Hilton hotel lobby wearing a pink dress and carrying her dog.
Throughout the lobby, everyone -- men and women, including several celebrities and influencers -- are dressed in pink and have blond hair or wigs, repeating some of Paris's trademark catchphrases as they snap selfies, scroll social media, and preen in mirrors -- actions that are "on brand" with the heiress's public persona.
A local educational advisory body in Manhattan has adopted a non-binding resolution calling on New York City Public Schools to prevent transgender female students from playing on sports teams matching their gender identity.
On March 20, Community Education Council 2, which covers a swath stretching from Lower Manhattan to the Upper East Side, approved a resolution urging New York City Public Schools to form a review committee to propose changes to the department's current gender guidelines.
Since 2019, the city has allowed transgender athletes to compete on sports teams that align with their gender identity. Critics of the current transgender participation policy argue that key stakeholders -- female cisgender athletes, coaches, parents, medical professionals, and evolutionary biology experts -- were either ignored or not consulted about the potential ramifications of such a policy.
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