Is trump banning gay marraige
A protester carries a sign as acctivists demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., December 5, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
What’s the context?
Ten years after same-sex marriage was legalised, gay and lesbian couples are uneasy under Trump.
- Decade since Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage
- At least six states call for conclusion to be revisited
- Couples celebrate anniversary with concerns for future
LONDON - When Zach Bolen proposed to his partner Derrick Dobson in 2017, he chose a place that meant a lot to them; the hiking track where the couple had first met, with a view over their entire home city of Boise, Idaho.
"I drove him to the top, claiming it would be a fun last-minute adventure as we had not been there in a while. I proposed with all of our friends and family behind us to surprise him after," Bolen, 33, told Context.
Now the couple's long-awaited wedding plans are uncertain.
In January, lawmakers in Idaho passed a resolution urging the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the ruling that legalised same-sex marriage across the Joined States.
On June 26, the United States will mark 10 years since that la
Trump on LGBTQ Rights
Conclusion
Across the country in recent years, transsexual people and their families have been targeted by a relentless assault on their rights, their safety, and their fundamental freedom to be themselves. States have adopted laws criminalizing their health care, attempting to ban them from public life, and even threatening to remove transgender youth from families that love and affirm them. Throughout this political onslaught, the ACLU, our nationwide affiliate network, and our millions of members have remained stalwart in defense of the basic principle that all people deserve the freedom to be themselves and every state should be a safe place to raise every family.
Donald Trump’s promises to take these discriminatory policies nationwide should be unthinkable, but it is nonetheless a future we’re prepared for. Transgender people are no strangers to government persecution, political slander, or the criminalization of gender nonconformity. They perceive how to erect safety, community, and care among one another, and the ACLU has a century-long history of represen
Following Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the 2024 presidential election, many people may be looking to his campaign speeches to grasp his position on major issues such as LGBTQ rights.
The Republican Party’s electoral promises in this area include cutting existing federal funding for gender-affirming care and restricting transgender students’ participation in sports.
Yet as a legal scholar who has written extensively on the history of LGBTQ rights, I have seen that the clearest indication of how a politician will act once in office is not what they promise on the campaign track. Instead, it is what they have done in the past.
Let’s examine the records of Trump and the vice president-elect, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
Trump restricted some LGBTQ rights
Trump and Vance are both relatively fresh to politics, so their records on LGBTQ rights issues are slim. That said, they contain both done enough to qualify them as opponents of LGBTQ rights.
Trump enacted two policies restricting LGBTQ rights early in his one term in office. The first was his 2017 executive order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty, which reinforced that federal law must respect conscience-base
Same-sex marriage, which the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 legalized nationwide in the case known as Obergefell v. Hodges, is facing resurgent hostility.
In the decade since the court’s decision, public support for same-sex marriage has increased. Currently, about 70% ofAmericans approve of legally acknowledging the marriages of gay couples, a 10-percentage-point bump from 2015.
Obergefell led to an increase in marriages among same-sex partners, with more than 700,000 gay couples currently married.
Despite this, Republican lawmakers in five states have recently introduced symbolic bills calling on the Supreme Court to overturn its ruling in Obergefell.
And Republican lawmakers in two states hold proposed legislation that creates a new category of marriage, called “covenant marriage,” that is reserved for one man and one woman.
As a professor of legal studies, I believe such attacks on same-sex marriage represent a serious threat to the institution.
And others share my concern.
A 2024 poll of married same-sex couples start that 54% of respondents are worried that the Supreme Court might overturn Obergefell, with only 17% saying they did not anticipate such a challe