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Mark Ballard: Congress and Supreme Court set to determine scope of LGBTQ rights – NOLA.com

WASHINGTON — The annual LGBTQ History Month — observed in the United States for the past 28 years — ends Monday and probably slipped the notice of many. It did mine.

Not to be confused with Pride Month, that’s June, it’s the annual monthlong observance of the history of civil rights involving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities.

Next year’s observance won’t slip by as unnoticed because a series of issues should attract a lot more attention. The outcomes of those legislative and legal battles should decide the future civil rights of the 7.1% of American adults who identified as LGBTQ in a February Gallup Poll. That’s roughly 15 million people as compared to, say, the 11.2 million adults born in Mexico who now live in the U.S.

First up will be the “Respect for Marriage Act,” which the Democratic majority U.S. House approved July 19 on a 267-157 vote. Only 47 Republicans supported the measure. All five GOP House representatives from Louisiana voted “Nay.”

The “Respect for Marriage Act” now awaits a vote in the U.S. Senate.

Essentially, if approved by the U.S. Senate, the act would engrave in federal law that government must recognize same-sex and interracial marriages.

The U.S. Supreme Court over the years had picked apart the constitutionality of the “Defense of Marriage Act,” which in 1996 defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman. In its June 26, 2015, Obergefell vs. Hodges ruling, the high court pretty much found the entirety of the “Defense of Marriage Act” unconstitutional.

In June 2022, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas opined that the same reasoning used to overturn the 49-year-old Roe vs. Wade abortion laws could be used to reconsider the findings in the Obergefell decision.

“We know that some want to turn the clock back,” said U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, the only Democrat in the six-member Louisiana congressional delegation. “We should be moving forward with advancing people’s rights not diminishing individual rights.”

Representing New Orleans in the Louisiana House back in the early 1990s, Carter filed the first bill to prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Some use these discriminatory marriage positions “as a way to draw wedges and use them as lightning rods to energize their base,” Carter said when asked how he expected the Senate to vote on the “Respect for Marriage Act,” perhaps as early as November.

The LGBTQ community also will be watching the Dec. 5 arguments on another case before the Supreme Court. Justices will be asked whether to change a 2018 ruling that narrowly balanced Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws with the First Amendment religious rights in the case of a baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. The couple was able to get their cake from another vendor.

The latest case, 303 Creative vs. Elenis, looks at whether Colorado’s anti-discrimination laws should compel a specialized web designer to customize a website to celebrate same-sex marriage, which goes against the expert’s religious beliefs.

Then there is the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act of 2022,” filed earlier this month by U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Benton, and joined by 32 other Republicans, including Rep. Clay Higgins, of Lafayette. The bill would prohibit federal funding for any “sexually-oriented” event or material for children under the age of 10. The legislation would allow parents to sue public or private entities that receive federal dollars. It targets drag shows and “radical gender theory,” which isn’t described in the measure. 

The makeup of the Supreme Court that will hear 303 Creative is far more conservative than the 7-2 majority that decided Masterpiece Cake Shop vs. Colorado.

Whether the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act” gains traction and whether the “Respect for Marriage” finally passes depends on who gets elected nine days from now and whether enough Republicans are chosen to control Congress or whether Democrats maintain the majority.

“The stakes in this election couldn’t be clearer. Will the House of Representatives continue to advance legislation like the ‘Respect for Marriage Act,’ or will it turn back the clock?” said David Stacy, the government affairs director for The Human Rights Campaign. His statement was part of the nation’s largest LGBTQ civil rights organization’s opposition to Johnson’s bill, which the group calls the federal “Don’t Say Gay” legislation.