Is the US Supreme Court changing gear on LGBTQ+ rights?
For years, the US Supreme Court set the pace on LGBTQ+ rights gains, but its first decisions since conservative justices bolstered their majority point to a period of more gradual change guided by public opinion and the search for consensus. Rulings by the court to allow same-sex marriage and ban workplace discrimination have changed daily life for LGBTQ+ Americans since 2015, also paving the way for broader acceptance of LGBTQ+ rights in the United States and beyond. But the court put religious rights before LGBTQ+ rights by ruling in favor of a Catholic Church-affiliated agency last month in a case related to same-sex foster parents, raising fears among advocates that years of big advances could be over. It was the Supreme Courts first case linked to LGBTQ+ rights since the arrival of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whose appointment brought the court from a 5-to-4 to a 6-to-3 conservative majority. We might have had this feeling up and through the Obama presidency that progress was on autopilot, said Congressman Mark Takano. Progress is not on autopilot. We cannot, as a community, count on the judiciary to be expansive in terms of our rights, Takano, a Democrat and the first openly gay person of Asian descent in Congress, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. He said the shift to a conservative majority at the court should put the onus on lawmakers to pass LGBTQ+ rights laws after a decade during which the judiciary set the pace. But while few LGBTQ+ rights campaigners expect the court to take an overtly progressive stance, the justices rebuff of an appeal in a transgender rights case last week has raised their hopes that more gradual change will be possible. Gavin Grimm, a trans former high school student from Virginia, had won a six-year legal battle against a Virginia county school board that had barred him from using the bathroom corresponding with his gender identity. By keeping in place a ruling that favored Grimm, the justices opted against taking up a case that could have set a nationwide precedent on a hot-button issue at the heart of a culture war raging between liberals and conservatives. The longer they dont jump in, the harder its going to be for them to change the rules down the road, said James Esseks, the American Civil Liberties Unions LGBTQ and HIV project director. And that is incredible progress on this legal issue of enormous consequence for trans people, Esseks added.