Lawsuit

A Georgia graduate student has filed a lawsuit accusing Augusta State University officials of violating her constitutional rights — she claims the school told her that her anti-gay beliefs are incompatible with the standards of her desired profession.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and seven gay couples in Montana filed a lawsuit against the state this week for failing to offer legal protections to same-sex couples and their families.

Gay rights advocates scored a major victory in federal court today, as a U.S. District Court judge in Boston struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law that defines marriage as a legal union exclusively between one man and one woman.

The father of a U.S. Marine killed in Iraq has been ordered to pay $16,510 to a family that protested his son’s funeral in Maryland. Albert Snyder sued members of the Westboro Baptist Church because they waved signs saying “God hates the USA,” “Matt is in Hell” and others bearing anti-gay slurs at the 2006 […]

Students at a private school in Los Angeles who posted internet death threats and anti-gay messages on a classmate’s webpage, can’t claim the constitutional protection of free speech, a California appeals court has ruled. The parents of the boy targeted by the threatening and derogatory posts on his website, withdrew him from Harvard-Westlake School in […]

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit Thursday against Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Miss., after the school district decided to cancel this year’s prom rather than let a lesbian student attend the dance with her girlfriend. At the center of the lawsuit is a memorandum from the school that was circulated to students […]

A D.C. Superior Court judge Thursday rejected gay marriage opponents efforts to hold a public referendum on whether those marriages should be legal in the District of Columbia. The ruling is a major victory for gay rights activists, making it more likely that the District will start allowing same-sex couples to marry in March. Plaintiffs […]

Gay marriage opponents have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and block video coverage a federal trial on the constitutionality California’s ban on same-sex marriage. Attorneys defending Proposition 8 and its ban on same-sex marriage filed the emergency appeal Saturday, arguing that their client’s right to a fair trial would be jeopardized. Supreme […]

An outspoken gay marriage opponent, and one of five defendants in the case challenging California’s Proposition 8, has asked to be removed from the lawsuit over fear the trial publicity that would endanger him and his family. Hak-Shing William Tam was one of five people who formally intervened to defend the state from a federal […]

From Reuters: The biggest U.S. gay rights battle next year is brewing in a California federal court as raucous fights over same-sex marriage in state legislatures and at state ballot boxes subside. In part, 2010 will reflect a growing move by same-sex marriage advocates to building support for their civil rights cause outside of the […]