Northcott publicly stated that he does not file domestic assault charges if the violence occurred between same-sex spouses, does not recognize “homosexual marriage,” and would not prosecute Tennessee county clerks who deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
The Tennessee State Senate is soon to vote on Tennessee SB 1304, a license-to-discriminate bill that allows taxpayer-funded child welfare agencies to reject foster or adoptive parents based upon the agency’s religious beliefs.
Today Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit challenging Tennessee’s policy prohibiting transgender people born in Tennessee from correcting the gender marker on their birth certificates.
Five leading national civil and LGBT rights organizations late yesterday filed an amicus (friend-of-the-court) brief in the multi-state lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s guidance regarding public school districts’ responsibility to allow transgender students to use the same restrooms as other students.
“After years of struggle and the dedicated work of thousands across the movement, we are finally within sight of the day when same-sex couples across the country will be able to share equally in the joys, protections and responsibilities of marriage.”
Yesterday, over a strenuous dissent, two Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals judges upheld discriminatory bans on marriage rights for same-sex couples in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, becoming the first federal circuit court after the Supreme Court’s watershed 2013 Windsor ruling to uphold such bans and departing from recent decisions from the 4th, 7th, 9th and 10th Circuits.