Indiana, Iowa and Texas advance anti-transgender agendas – part of a longtime strategy by conservatives to rally their base

  Transgender girls in Iowa will no longer be allowed to compete in girls’ sports – the latest in a rash of anti-trans initiatives sweeping across the United States.

  On March 3, 2022, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed into law legislation that affects transgender girls and women wanting to compete in accordance with their gender identity.

  It comes just days after legislators in Indiana advanced a similar bill aimed at K-12 trans students.

Anti-transgender bills are latest version of conservatives’ longtime strategy to rally their base

  On April 6, 2021, despite Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto, Arkansas became the first state to prohibit physicians from providing gender-affirming medical care like hormone treatments designed to delay puberty in transgender youth. So-called “puberty blockers” are used to delay the physical changes associated with puberty and provide time for transgender young people to consider their options.

  Arkansas physicians now face criminal penalties if they prescribe puberty blockers or other forms of cross-gender health care to transgender youth. Twenty other states are considering similar bills. Some would classify puberty blockers and other gender-affirming medical treatments as child abuse or would revoke the medical licenses of physicians prescribing these therapies.

Judge Gorsuch threatens the dignity of LGBT people

  Judges with Supreme Court aspirations tend to guard their views, avoiding stances and statements that could impede a nomination or confirmation. Judge Neil Gorsuch has done just that, leading observers to look to his influences rather than his issuances. Among them is Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom he clerked. While Judge Gorsuch and Justice Kennedy may share a bond, they part ways on several issues. One lesser known but critically important point of potential disagreement surrounds a somewhat nebulous legal principle critical to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, rights: the dignity of free persons.

25 years of of Roy Moore's unconstitutional efforts to mix law and religion

  Since his appointment as a state circuit judge in 1992, Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has put his personal religious views above the law and the U.S. Constitution, frequently bringing religion into the courtroom and basing judicial opinions on his Biblical beliefs. He has been removed from office once for disobeying the federal judiciary on the matter, and now he again faces a trial for violating judicial ethics for refusing to recognize federal court rulings on same-sex marriage. Here is a timeline of events leading up to the September 28 trial in the Alabama Court of the Judiciary.

Charles C. Haynes: After gay marriage, can we move from battleground to common ground?

  In recent years, religious freedom — or, more precisely, religious freedom claims — have been front and center in the battle over same-sex marriage.

  From bitter debates in Arizona and Indiana to the grand compromise in Utah, proponents and opponents have shouted past one another about if and when to grant exemptions for conscientious objectors to same-sex marriage.

  The Supreme Court’s decision on June 26 in Obergefell v. Hodges recognizing gay marriage as a constitutional right will not end this debate. But it might, just might, move people of goodwill on both sides from battleground to common ground on how best to balance competing visions of equality and liberty.