Bad week for GLBT rights in deep South

By John Mack Freeman

The last week has not been good for GLBT rights in the Deep South.

In Alabama, the state Supreme Court has halted same-sex marriages. They said in a decision that they did not agree that a federal court had jurisdiction to overturn an amendment to the Alabama Constitution that restricted marriage to a man and a woman. Instead, they are claiming that only the Supreme Court has that authority. In the mean time, litigants in the original case that struck down the ban in federal court have petitioned the judge to change their case into a class action suit that would have the ruling apply equally to all people who find themselves in the same situation. This bizarre turn of events only delays the inevitable, and it places same-sex unions that have already occurred in the state in a precarious position.

In Georgia, the state Senate Judiciary Committee passed a religious freedom bill that would allow individuals to refuse service to others based on their religious beliefs. The goal of such bills is almost universally to allow business owners and government employees to discriminate against GLBT people without legal repercussions.  Similar bills are under consideration across the United States.

In North Carolina, the Charlotte City Council rejected an LGBT-inclusive anti-discrimination law by a 6-5 vote. Charlotte is one of only three of the top 20 biggest cities in American without an LGBT-inclusive anti-discrimination law (the other two are Nashville, TN and Jacksonville, FL).

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