Sexual Orientation

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (1993)

  • not allowed to be gay and serve in the military

  • They cannot ask you your sexual orientation

  • If you are out about your sexual orientation you will be discharged, ie stay in the closet

  • Military sent some people to local gay bars to catch soldiers and charge them

DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) 1996

  • President Clinton signed into law

  • defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman and that no state is required to recognize a same-sex marriage from out of state.

→ vermont in 2000, legalized civil unions

→ massachussets in 2004, first state to legalize gay marriage

James Bird and Matthew Shepard Act - Based on Hate Crimes

  • James Bird was a black man in Texas and was captured by white supremacists and was lynched and hate crime based on race.

  • Matthew Shepard was a gay man in Wyoming, lured out of a bar and was violently hate crime as well.

  • Made any crime motivated by disability, gender, sexual orientation, race etc. a federal hate crime in order to bring more chargers

2010 beginning of the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Obama states he won’t defend DOMA

Biden comes out in support of gay marriage

Obama comes out in favor of marriage equity

Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972)

  • Supreme Court expanded scope of sexual privacy to include unmarried couples

Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)

  • Michael Hardwick was observed by a Georgia pokive officer while engaging in the act of concsesual homosexual sodomy with another adult in the bedroom of his home. After being charged with violating a Georgia law against sodomy

  • The divided court found that there is no protection for gay men having sex

Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000)

  • The BSA revoked former Eagle Scout and assistant scoutmaster James Dale’s adult membership when the org discovered Dalw was a homosexual and gay rights activist. in 1992 Sale filed suit against the Boy Scouts alleging that the NBOu Scouts had violated the NJ state prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in places of public accommodation. The Boy Scouts, a private for-profit organization asserted that homosexual conduct was inconsistent with their ideal

  • New Jersey supreme court ruled that Dale was correct due to their laws of discrimination.

  • Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that because the Boy Scouts are a private organization they can devise their own membership criteria

Lawrence v. Texas (2003)

  • Responding to a ruckus at a domestic, 6-3 supreme court opinion defended the men’s rights to engage in same sex conduct without intervention in their own home

  • STATES CANNOT HAVE ANTI-SODOMY LAWS

  • “State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation. adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity. All of these laws are now called into question by this ruling” Clarence Thomas on the ruling

United States v. Windsor (2013)

  • States cannot deny marriage licenses from other states.

Obergefell v. Hodges (2015)

  • Supreme court rules based upon the 14th amendment equal protection clause marriage cannot be denied based upon sexual orientation

  • Equal marriage clause is violated if you deny same-sex couples the same rights as different-sex couples

Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018)

  • Does the application of Colorado’s public accommodations law to compel a cake maker to make a cake for a same-sex couple violate the free speech clause of the first amendment?

  • Cannot be compelled to make speech in a way they do not wish to, ie making the cake for the same-sex couple would be him speaking for the same-sex couple

6-3 decision written by Neil Gorsuch. The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designer to create expressive designs with messages with which the designer disagrees.

Gender Dysphoria - feeling of identifying with a different gender

US v. Skrimetti (2025)

  • Oral argument took place dec 4 2024 on a challenge brought by a trans youth and their families to a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming medical care

    • puberty blockers

    • hormones like estrogen testosterone

    • ^delays for children in order to have time to make decisions