Liberty Counsel has prepared to take down gay marriage for years. Their biggest attack is now.

History

Liberty Counsel was founded by preacher turned lawyer Mat Staver and his wife, Anita.

Mat Staver, who now serves as the chairman, senior pastor, and primary spokesperson for the group, authored the 2004 book “Same-sex Marriage: Putting Every Household at Risk,” where he wrote that “homosexuality is rooted in fractured emotions” and “a common thread in virtually every case is some sort of sexual or emotional brokenness.”

While the organization started operations solely in Florida, Mat Staver told the Orlando Sentinel shortly after Liberty Counsel launched that the group “would be a Christian antithesis to the ACLU” and that he “always felt the Lord calling [him] to combine [ministry and law] together.”

Liberty Counsel was active throughout the 1990s, with a focus on First Amendment cases, but Staver and his group didn’t gain national attention until 1994, when he argued before the Supreme Court for a case that challenged the constitutionality of a Florida court ruling that barred anti-abortion protests outside of a clinic. Some parts of the ruling were successfully overturned while others remained in place.

After that, the group built up a reputation for taking up cases related to religion in schools and other public institutions, including one instance where they threatened a lawsuit against one school for changing the lyrics of a Christmas song in a school play.

Attacking Gay Rights

After the turn of the century, Liberty Counsel became more active on gay issues. In 2003, they filed an amicus brief in Lawrence v. Texas, the case that decriminalized gay sex nationwide, arguing in favor of state laws banning it by saying that “deregulating human sexual relations will erode the institution of marriage.”

When California was taken to court over Proposition 8, a 2008 state constitutional amendment that sought to ban gay marriage in the state, Liberty Counsel attempted to be among the lawyers defending it. The group publicly criticized fellow far-right Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom for, in their view, arguing the case poorly.

One lawyer for Liberty Counsel also disagreed with legal positions taken by one pro-Prop 8 lawyer, who reportedly refused to argue that homosexuality is an “illness or disorder.” In their amicus brief in support of the proposition, Liberty Counsel argued that homosexuality “presents serious physical, emotional, mental, and other health-related risks.”

And in 2015, just months before the Obergefell ruling, the group offered to represent Alabama judges who refused to perform gay marriages after a state ban was overturned.

Once gay marriage became legal nationwide, Liberty Counsel took up Kim Davis’ case, which brought them more media attention than ever before.

“Kim Davis was a boon to Liberty Counsel,” says Peter Montgomery, research director at People for the American Way, an advocacy group aimed at challenging the far right. “[She] got them a huge amount of publicity, and I think they’ve really grown since they first took up her case.”

Much of the earned media from the Davis case, however, was negative. Liberty Counsel received criticism for encouraging Davis to continue refusing gay marriage licenses in violation of a court order. And even a Fox News panel of legal experts called Davis a “hypocrite” and Mat Staver’s legal arguments “stunningly obtuse” and “ridiculously stupid.”

In an email to Uncloseted Media, Liberty Counsel took issue with criticism of the group’s past litigation, writing that “[they] have 40 wins [they] briefed or argued at the US Supreme Court, including a 9-0 win in Shurtleff v. City of Boston.”

Liberty Counsel has created their own media, including a daily 11-minute radio broadcast, Faith and Freedom. Launched in 2010, the program is syndicated on 145 stations across the country and frequently contains anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, including assertions that LGBTQ-inclusive policies in the Boy Scouts create “a playground for pedophiles”; that gay people “know intuitively that what they are doing is immoral, unnatural, and self-destructive”; and that gay people are “not controlled by reason,” but rather “controlled by … lust.”

And after being boosted in popularity by Kim Davis, a 2016 CBS News investigation found that the group had worked with lawmakers in at least 20 states to author anti-LBGTQ bills, including trans bathroom bans.

“They’re pretty much anti-LGBT in every way you can be,” Montgomery told Uncloseted Media. “Staver is pretty shameless in lying about gay people and the laws.”

Why Now?

Davis’ case has fallen in and out of public attention over the years, with the Supreme Court rejecting a previous petition in 2020. Despite this, Liberty Counsel has remained confident in the case’s potential to upend gay marriage. In 2023, the group told their supporters in an email that they planned to use Davis’ case to persuade the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell. These comments came a year after Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas expressed interest in reconsidering Obergefell in his opinion on the case that overturned Roe v. Wade.

“[The far right have] been working for decades to get their pieces in place, so at this particular moment, looking at the chessboard, they’ve got a critical mass of conservative states with Republicans in the state house, they’ve got the White House, they’ve got both houses of Congress, and they’ve got a majority on the Supreme Court,” says Nelson. “In a year, that could change.”

Increasing Notoriety

Montgomery says that Liberty Counsel’s popularity and influence has been on the rise since the start of the pandemic, when the group gained traction by opposing restrictions on churches meeting during COVID lockdowns. During this period, Staver claimed that COVID-19 vaccines are designed to “prevent people from procreating.”

“One of the ways that [Staver] has boosted his visibility and influence was riding that parade, which a number of people on the religious right did, and took advantage of the resentment of public health restrictions,” says Montgomery.

Since then, the group has falsely claimed that the Respect for Marriage Act “would allow pedophiles to marry children,” and Staver wrote in a newsletter that “the LGBTQ agenda seeks nothing less than to eliminate all religious freedom rights that might make them feel bad about their choices.”

In the meantime, affiliates of the group have been cozying up to the Supreme Court. In 2022, a representative of the Liberty Counsel-owned D.C. ministry Faith & Liberty was caught bragging about praying with Supreme Court justices just weeks after the court overturned Roe v. Wade. Staver told Rolling Stone these allegations are “entirely untrue.”

In his majority opinion on the case, Justice Alito cited an amicus brief filed by Liberty Counsel where the group argues that “the birth control and abortion movements are racist and eugenic.”

Part of a Bigger Picture

Liberty Counsel’s website reports that it generated nearly $28 million in revenue between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024. While their internal team has roughly 40 employees listed on LinkedIn, they have claimed to have anywhere from 90 to 700 affiliate attorneys across the country. Some of the group’s larger and more consistent donors reportedly include fracking baron Farris Wilks; the Christian TV network Good Life Broadcasting; and Liberty University, where Staver previously worked as dean of the law school.

“The big Christian nationalist and plutocratic donors understand that the Supreme Court, and the judiciary in general, are central to their aims … so over the past few decades they spent enormous sums grooming and promoting candidates for the judiciary whose interpretation of the law is favorable to their interests,” Katherine Stewart, an author and expert on religious nationalism, told Uncloseted Media in an email. “Liberty Counsel has successfully positioned itself as one of the players in that space. It only picks up a slice from the total pie, but the pie is so well-funded that even a slice is rich indeed.”

Beyond this, Liberty Counsel is affiliated with a number of other right-wing groups, several of which operate directly under the group’s umbrella. Staver holds leadership positions in other conservative groups, including Salt & Light Council and National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference—the former of which has been outspokenly anti-LGBTQ. Liberty Counsel is also a member of the Remnant Alliance, a coalition of groups known for coordinating to elect Christian nationalist candidates to local school boards. A leaked membership directory from 2020 also listed Staver as a member of the Council for National Policy, a secretive group that includes Republican politicians and major leaders of Christian right organizations, though Staver told Uncloseted Media that Liberty Counsel and the Council for National Policy are not affiliated.

Nelson says connections like these allow different groups on the far right to coordinate together on anti-LGBTQ policies.

“They’ll have coordinated messaging about whatever campaign they’re launching at the moment. And it’s highly coordinated, as in the same story, the same language, the same spokespeople. It’s really quite impressive. And so all of a sudden there’ll be a story that will just erupt.”

The Council for National Policy did not respond to a request for comment.

When Liberty Counsel filed its most recent petition for Davis’ case to the Supreme Court, multiple right-wing media outlets whose leadership have been members of the Council for National Policy quickly covered the story with a favorable spin, including Salem Media Group, the Washington Times and WorldNetDaily. And earlier this year, Staver networked at the National Religious Broadcasters conference, where he discussed plans to overturn Obergefell.

Montgomery says that this coordination is especially powerful because different groups are able to influence different spheres. For example, while Liberty Counsel pressures the courts, a group like Salt & Light Council works to activate supporters in ministry.

“They have this broader vision of wanting to change the culture and change the country,” he says. “They are all different approaches to moving the country in the direction they want: courts, legislative advocacy, lobbying, organizing, and media outreach.”

Nelson says the far right’s recent legal success is thanks in part to the influx of right-wing judges since the start of Trump’s first term.

“It’s worked initially with trying to get local and political opposition to these laws, and it’s linked to getting the appointments of judges who’ve had to pass a litmus test,” she says. “And then [their strategy involves] mounting the lawsuits, starting usually at the state level and working their way up the court system, specializing in states where they believe they’ll have sympathetic judges. … It’s gaming [the system].”

In an email to Uncloseted Media, Liberty Counsel says this characterization does not describe their litigation strategy.

What Does This Mean for Marriage Equality?

Despite all of this, many legal experts believe that this latest challenge to marriage equality is a long shot. Liberty Counsel’s arguments were largely rejected by a federal appeals court panel earlier this year, and several of the justices have shown little to no interest in revisiting Obergefell. Just this month, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the right to marriage is “fundamental” and called for people to “tune … out” concerns about gay marriage being overturned.

However, given the current political moment, Nelson says that the threat to Obergefell should not be underestimated.

“This long-range strategy is coming to fruition, and a lot of the pieces are in place,” she says. “Under the current circumstances, with the current judiciary, they’ve got a reasonable chance of allowing states to ban same-sex marriages on a state level with an eye towards eventually banning it [on a nationwide level] in the future.”

September 25, 2025 0

Supreme Court formally asked to overturn landmark same-sex marriage ruling

A renewed campaign to reverse legal precedent

Davis’ appeal to the Supreme Court comes as conservative opponents of marriage rights for same-sex couples pursue a renewed campaign to reverse legal precedent and allow each state to set its own policy.

At the time Obergefell was decided in 2015, 35 states had statutory or constitutional bans on same-sex marriages, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Only eight states had enacted laws explicitly allowing the unions.

So far in 2025, at least nine states have either introduced legislation aimed at blocking new marriage licenses for LGBTQ people or passed resolutions urging the Supreme Court to reverse Obergefell at the earliest opportunity, according to the advocacy group Lambda Legal.

In June, the Southern Baptist Convention — the nation’s largest Protestant Christian denomination — overwhelmingly voted to make “overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God’s design for marriage and family” a top priority.

Support for equal marriage rights softening

While a strong majority of Americans favor equal marriage rights, support appears to have softened in recent years, according to Gallup — 60% of Americans supported same-sex marriages in 2015, rising to 70% support in 2025, but that level has plateaued since 2020.

Among Republicans, support has notably dipped over the past decade, down from 55% in 2021 to 41% this year, Gallup found.

Davis’ petition argues the issue of marriage should be treated the same way the court handled the issue of abortion in its 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade. She zeroes in on Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurrence in that case, in which he explicitly called for revisiting Obergefell.

The justices “should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote at the time, referring to the landmark decisions dealing with a fundamental right to privacy, due process and equal protection rights.

“It is hard to say where things will go, but this will be a long slog considering how popular same-sex marriage is now,” said Josh Blackman, a prominent conservative constitutional scholar and professor at South Texas College of Law.

Blackman predicts many members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority would want prospective challenges to Obergefell to percolate in lower courts before revisiting the debate.

The court is expected to formally consider Davis’ petition this fall during a private conference when the justices discuss which cases to add to their docket. If the case is accepted, it would likely be scheduled for oral argument next spring and decided by the end of June 2026. The court could also decline the case, allowing a lower court ruling to stand and avoid entirely the request to revisit Obergefell.

“Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett seem wildly uninterested. Maybe Justice Neil Gorsuch, too,” said Sarah Isgur, an ABC News legal analyst and host of the legal podcast Advisory Opinions.

“There is no world in which the court takes the case as a straight gay marriage case,” Isgur added. “It would have to come up as a lower court holding that Obergefell binds judges to accept some other kind of non-traditional marital arrangement.”

Ruling wouldn’t invalidate existing marriages

If the ruling were to be overturned at some point in the future, it would not invalidate marriages already performed, legal experts have pointed out. The 2022 Respect for Marriage Act requires the federal government and all states to recognize legal marriages of same-sex and interracial couples performed in any state — even if there is a future change in the law.

Davis first appealed the Supreme Court in 2019 seeking to have the damages suit against her tossed out, but her petition was rejected. Conservative Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito concurred with the decision at the time.

“This petition implicates important questions about the scope of our decision in Obergefell, but it does not cleanly present them,” Thomas wrote in a statement.

Many LGBTQ advocates say they are apprehensive about the shifting legal and political landscape around marriage rights.

There are an estimated 823,000 married same-sex couples in the U.S., including 591,000 that wed after the Supreme Court decision in June 2015, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School. Nearly one in five of those married couples is parenting a child under 18.

Since the Obergefell decision, the makeup of the Supreme Court has shifted rightward, now including three appointees of President Donald Trump and a 6-justice conservative supermajority.

Chief Justice John Roberts, among the current members of the court who dissented in Obergefell a decade ago, sharply criticized the ruling at the time as “an act of will, not legal judgment” with “no basis in the Constitution.” He also warned then that it “creates serious questions about religious liberty.”

Davis invoked Roberts’ words in her petition to the high court, hopeful that at least four justices will vote to accept her case and hear arguments next year.

August 11, 2025 0

Ukrainian court recognizes same-sex couple as a family in historic LGBTQ+ victory

Which Country in the World Supports Marriage Equality the Most?

*Reported by The Advocate.

Support for marriage equality varies greatly around the world, with Western European countries most heavily in favor, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis.

Pew has conducted surveys in 32 countries in the past two years. Support was highest in Sweden, where 92 percent of respondents favored equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. Other countries Western Europe were not far behind, with 89 percent support in the Netherlands, 87 percent in Spain, 82 percent in France, and 80 percent in Germany. Each of those countries has legalized same-sex marriage.

In Italy, where legalization is being debated but hasn’t yet happened, 73 percent of respondents endorsed marriage equality. In the United Kingdom, support stood at 74 percent, and all parts of the U.K. have enacted marriage equality.

The situation was much different in the Eastern European countries Pew has surveyed, with just 41 percent support in Poland and 31 percent in Hungary.

In North America, 79 percent of Canadians and 63 percent of both U.S. residents and Mexicans backed marriage equality. In the U.S., there were stark differences along party lines. Eighty-two percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents were supportive, compared to 44 percent of Republicans and Republican leaners. Age differences showed up in the U.S. too, with 73 percent of respondents under 40 being supportive, compared to 57 percent of those 40 and older.

In the two South American countries surveyed, there was majority endorsement of marriage equality — 67 percent in Argentina and 53 percent in Brazil. Both countries have legalized same-sex marriage.

Surveys of the Asia-Pacific region showed 75 percent support of equal marriage rights in Australia, which OK’d marriage equality in 2017. In Taiwan, the only Asian country with marriage equality, 45 percent of respondents were in favor and 43 percent still opposed, with the rest undecided. There was majority support in Japan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Cambodia, and India; the latter’s highest court “recently rejected a petition to legalize same-sex marriage,” Pew notes. The survey there was conducted before the ruling. Indonesia had the lowest amount of support among Asian countries, with 5 percent.

In Africa and the Middle East, Pew found 38 percent of both South Africans and Israelis in favor of marriage equality, but just 9 percent of Kenyans and 2 percent of Nigerians. Nigeria came in lowest of all the countries surveyed.

Around the world, Pew found that younger people were more likely to support marriage equality than older ones, women more likely than men, and liberals more likely than conservatives. The ideological split is greatest in the U.S., with 90 percent of liberals endorsing marriage equality and just 36 percent of conservatives. Globally, people with higher levels of education and income were more supportive than those with lower levels.

July 3, 2025 0

Marriage Equality at 10 and Already in Danger.

*This is the opinion of the author.

June 26, 2015 was a milestone day in the United States when the SCOTUS decision was announced in the case of Obergefell v Hodges. A narrow 5-4 ruling brought nationwide marriage equality for LGBTQ people much sooner than many expected it. I certainly did not even think it would occur in my lifetime. The nation was split down the middle on the topic. A piecemeal approach was commonplace, with some states making it legal before the ruling, and others staunchly opposed to it in their state constitutions. Yet, a conservative justice saw fit to challenge the status quo and actually base a ruling on the US Constitution for a change, rather than political ideology.

We had already been married for almost 4 years at that point. We were living in Texas in July 2011 and my boyfriend at the time decided to ask me to marry him (now her, but that is another story for another day). We had been living together nearly 10 years. Going to Canada was floated as an idea. I had family in New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo in New York had just its own marriage equality law June 24 that year to take effect in July. So, New York it was! I had become an internet wedding planner of my own wedding by then to be wed on October 09, 2011, one day difference from our “10th anniversary”. It was tedious. It was stressful. It was fun. It was one of the best days of my life. I will never do it again. Sorry boys and girls.

While our own wedding anniversary of 14 years is coming this fall, I sit here writing this and worried that we will have to go through even more bullshit to not only keep our marriage legally intact, but to ensure future generations maintain their right to due process and equality under the law. We have a Supreme Court who has already shown it has the balls to revisit and repeal established forward thinking case law precedent. See, Roe v Wade’s death as a result of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, and Alito, who each wrote a dissenting opinion in Obergefell v Hodges are still proudly part of the conservative super majority on the bench. Yes, there is a Respect for Marriage Act that was finally passed in 2022 to help reaffirm O v H.

But we also have a President and House who are willing to turn back time. We have state legislators, who are now firing the opening salvo towards repeal of marriage equality. House reps in 9 states in 2025 proposed resolutions urging SCOTUS to repeal O v H. Those resolutions were passed in North Dakota and Idaho. 4 other states introduced bills, which failed, to introduce covenant marriage to their books, which would have created an exclusive category for opposite sex couples.

I hope everyone enjoys their anniversary, whether you were married today or at another point in time. But please remain vigilant and pay fucking attention to what is going on around you. Your rights can always be removed with the stroke of a pen. And sometimes that pen needs to be shoved into an uncomfortable place.

This is us. Climate change was on full display.

John Turner-McClelland is the editor of several blogs including FleeRedStates. He is a licensed real estate agent in Texas and North Carolina. He was on a Vice News panel once and was allowed to speak for 5 seconds on air. He has been a proud liberal LGBTQ activist and former elected official for a few decades or so. Yes, he is still married.

June 26, 2025 0

Ohio Republicans introduce ‘Natural Family Month’ bill, excluding LGBTQ families

*This is reported by NBC News

More than two dozen Ohio lawmakers are supporting a bill that would designate the weeks between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day “Natural Family Month.”

Though the bill, introduced by Republican state Reps. Josh Williams and Beth Lear, doesn’t define “natural family” in its text, critics say it is intended to exclude LGBTQ families and promote marriage and childrearing between heterosexual, monogamous couples only.

When asked whether “Natural Family Month” will also recognize gay couples and parents with adopted children, Williams said in an emailed statement to NBC News that “the purpose of the month is to promote natural families—meaning a man, a woman, and their children—as a way to encourage higher birth rates.”

He added, “This is not about discriminating against other family structures, but about supporting the one most directly tied to the creation and raising of children.”

Lear did not return a request for comment.

After introducing the bill earlier this week, Williams and Lear said in joint statements that the initiative is intended to promote child rearing.

“At a time when marriage is trending downward and young couples are often choosing to remain childless, it’s important for the State of Ohio to make a statement that marriage and families are the cornerstone of civil society, and absolutely imperative if we want to maintain a healthy and stable Republic,” Lear said.

As of Friday, the bill had 26 additional Republican co-sponsors.

Dwayne Steward, the director of statewide LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Ohio, told a local queer news site that the bill is both bad policy and a “calculated act of strategic erasure.”

“It not only invalidates the existence of single parents and countless other caregivers, but it takes direct aim at LGBTQ+ families across our state,” Steward told the Buckeye Flame. “The so-called ‘Natural Family Foundation,’ the group pushing this legislation, has made their ideology clear: if you’re not a heterosexual, monogamous couple with children, you don’t count as a family at all.”

Steward, who did not immediately return NBC News’ request for comment, added, “As an adoptive parent, myself, I feel this erasure personally. This bill is not just offensive; it’s dangerous.”

Several local news websites, including the Buckeye Flame, reported that the Natural Family Foundation, a conservative advocacy group that is against same-sex marriage and promotes families with a “clear male leader,” was involved in lobbying for the bill. The foundation did not immediately return a request for comment.

Last year, Ohio considered eight bills targeting LGBTQ people, according to a tally by the American Civil Liberties Union. Two of those — a provision that requires school personnel to notify parents of “any request by a student to identify as a gender that does not align with the student’s” birth sex, and a measure that prohibits certain transition-related medical care for minors — became law.

May 17, 2025 0

Oklahoma GOP legislators ask Supreme Court to overturn same-sex marriage

*This is reported by LGBTQ Nation.

Christian nationalist Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers (R) and state Rep. Jim Olsen (R) have filed a resolution asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Republican lawmakers in at least five other states have introduced similar resolutions, all of which are largely symbolic and non-binding.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 8 claims that the 2015 high court ruling conflicts with the original meaning of the U.S. Constitution, the country’s founding principles, and “the deeply rooted history and tradition” regarding state regulation of marriage rights. It also notes that 75% of Oklahoma voters supported banning any recognition of same-sex unions in a 2004 ballot measure.

The resolution refers to the Supreme Court decision as an “unwarranted governmental intrusion,” accuses the high court of abusing “the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause to fabricate substantive rights,” and says the 2015 decision is “undermining the civil liberties” of states “without any valid constitutional warrant for doing so.”

“For millennia marriage has been understood, both in biblical teaching and in the Anglo-American common-law tradition, as the lifelong covenant union of one man and one woman,” the resolution states. “Obergefell arbitrarily and unjustly rejected and prohibited states from recognizing this definition of marriage in favor of its own definition of marriage and a novel, flawed interpretation” of the U.S. Constitution.

It also notes that both Democratic Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan had previously officiated same-sex weddings before the ruling and “should have recused themselves” from the Obergefell case. It further states that the decision has resulted in litigation directly targeting Christian business owners who refuse to accommodate same-sex couples and has resulted in Christians being vilified as “bigoted.”

“Obergefell played a role in erasing biological distinctions in other arenas, threatening women’s privacy, safety, and athletic opportunities,” the resolution adds, drawing a dubious connection between same-sex marriage and transgender people’s civil rights.

If the resolution is approved by state lawmakers, copies of it will be distributed to the Supreme Court, the president of the U.S. Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, members of the Oklahoma congressional delegation and the Oklahoma attorney general, the resolution states.

Similar resolutions have been introduced in at least five other states: Michigan, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Deevers & Olsen’s resolution relies on legal misinterpretations

The court’s 2015 decision relied partially on the 1967 high court ruling in Loving v. Virginia, which granted marriage rights to heterosexual couples consisting of individuals from different racial ethnicities.

“If rights were defined by who exercised them in the past, then received practices could serve as their own continued justification and new groups could not invoke rights once denied,” the Supreme Court wrote in its 2015 decision.

The court’s majority opinion also ruled that governmental refusal to recognize same-sex marriages denies them numerous benefits of marriage, including the ability to care for children and family members. State bans on same-sex marriages also restricted same-sex couples’ and their families’ ability to move freely around the country, since their rights could vary greatly if they moved to an anti-marriage state, the court ruling said.

As such, the court ruled that same-sex marriage bans violate both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause by needlessly introducing instability into same-sex relationships for no justifiable or compelling government interest.

While some Christian businesses have been sued for refusing to serve LGBTQ+ people and same-sex couples based on “sincerely held religious beliefs,” these lawsuits have focused on how such refusals violate public accommodations protections in state anti-discrimination laws, which require businesses to treat citizens equally, regardless of sexual orientation.

Deevers has long opposed same-sex marriages

Speaking last month to Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC) — which has been certified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Research Center — Deevers said, “The fact is, Obergefell is fundamentally antithetical to all of these, and there is just no right to gay marriage in the Constitution.”

Despite this claim, the Supreme Court believes that the Constitution’s equal protection and due process provisions require the government to treat all individuals equally under the law unless there’s a compelling government interest to do otherwise.

“Ultimately, marriage is not the state’s institution, it’s God’s institution,” Deevers said. “No Supreme Court ruling that redefines a God-ordained institution is ever truly settled: not morally or culturally, and even constitutionally. The rogue court will stand in judgment before God for their decision.”

Deevers’s campaign website also clearly states his anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs.

“It is outrageous that drag queens are permitted to dance and twerk for children at pride parades and story hours in our state,” his website states. “It is outrageous that … public schools have exposed elementary and middle school children to… LGBTQ+ propaganda…. It is outrageous that Critical Race Theory and Queer Theory dominate in many of our public institutions. I promise to support legislation to put a stop to all of this.”

May 8, 2025 0

Couple planning Puerto Vallarta wedding claims discrimination

*This is reported on LGBTQNation.

A Canadian couple planning a destination wedding in gay mecca Puerto Vallarta says they’ve been discriminated against by the beachside hotel where they’d hoped to tie the knot.

Jeremy Alexander and Ryan Sheepwash shared their experience in now-viral videos on Instagram and TikTok.

“Soooo disappointed that my fiancée and I got discriminated against for our wedding plans in Puerto Vallarta by #Sheraton!! Worst of all, they’ve probably done this to countless other same-sex couples.”

The pair had been planning their wedding for months, including a trip to PV to check out prospective venues. They say a tour of the Sheraton Buganvilias Resort won them over, with hospitable staff and a price within their range.

But the couple’s experience with the hotel’s wedding planner deteriorated over a succession of efforts to lock the wedding in. When a quote finally arrived after three months, Alexander and Sheepwash were provided with an outrageous estimate of the bill.

The invoice said 25 deluxe, all-inclusive ocean view rooms would set guests back $970 each; the hotel demanded a $36,000 deposit for half of the rooms.

“It’s not reasonable,” Alexander said. “No one can afford that.”

It was also much more than the hotel had initially quoted the couple. The Sheraton also said they couldn’t accommodate the couple until March of 2027.

Alexander and Sheepwash got engaged in Puerto Vallarta in February 2024.

Shocked at the estimate, the couple decided to ask a straight friend to “request a quote just to see apples to apples what it looks like.”

That inquiry for a hypothetical wedding, planned for the same dates Alexander and Sheepwash wanted, came with a different outcome: a “deluxe package” for 50 people was $8,500, or $254 per person per night, and required a deposit of just $1,700 — on the same dates Alexander and Sheepwash had requested.

“We just feel defeated,” said Sheepwash in the TikTok video. “It’s not fair because we love each other and we really want to get married, and we want to make it special and we want to make it perfect.”

“We felt we’d be indirectly complicit to the system if we’re aware of it and we’re not combating it,” Alexander told NBC News. “That was the major driving factor in us wanting to put the story out there.”

The hotel is a “third-party franchisee” of the Marriott corporation and declined to comment.

Marriott International said in a statement that the company has reached out to the couple “to learn more about their experience and are working with the property to offer a solution.”

“The Sheraton Buganvilias has been active in the LGBTQ community in Puerto Vallarta for years, not only hosting LGBTQ+ weddings and groups but also supporting Pride events in Puerto Vallarta,” the spokesperson said. “Marriott remains steadfast in our commitment to ensure guests are treated with respect and understanding.”

“It’s very clear there’s an issue all the way to the top at this particular Sheraton of homophobia,” Alexander said. Marriott “would need to make some seriously impactful change before I’d be entertaining what they have to say there. They are part of a lot of queer travel alliances, and the actions have to line up with reality, and right now it doesn’t.”

Alexander and Sheepwash aren’t the first to experience the hotel’s discriminatory treatment. “Just Google it,” Alexander advises on Insta.

In 2019, Josh Rimer, a television host and Mr. Gay Canada 2019, and his then-fiancé were turned away from the hotel after choosing it to host their own wedding.

And while researching the hotel, Sheepwash uncovered a TikTok video posted by Daniel Galecio, a wedding planner in Puerto Vallarta, who said the same Sheraton staff member who provided the couple’s inflated estimate told him the resort is currently unable to host same-sex weddings.

“That hotel has a history of years of discrimination, and all the city knows — all the gays know,” Galecio said.

Marriage equality became legal nationally in Mexico in 2022.

April 27, 2025 0

‘Colorado is for everyone’: Polis signs bill repealing same-sex marriage ban

*This is reported by KDVR.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed the “Protecting the Freedom to Marry Act” on Monday, repealing the state’s same-sex marriage ban from Colorado law.

The bill removes language that says marriage is only between a man and woman and aligns statute with the Colorado Constitution after voters in November decided to repeal that ban. The state House passed the bill in March after the Senate passed it in early February.

“Colorado is for everyone, no matter who you are or who you love,” Polis said in a press release. “Last November, the voters got rid of outdated language in our constitution that banned same-sex marriage. This is a long overdue step in the right direction and today’s law I’m signing ensures that Coloradans can marry who they love in our Colorado for all.”

First Gentleman Marlon Reis, in the press release, said this bill defends the progress made for LGBTQ+ rights.

“I am personally grateful to Senator Danielson, Representatives Garcia and Titone, and the countless community leaders and advocates whose hard work has made today possible,” Reis said. “This landmark legislation fulfills the hopes and dreams of so many across our LGBTQ+ and allied communities, and affirms that progress hard won is always worth defending, and in the end, love triumphs over all.”

Colorado’s previous same-sex marriage ban had been unenforceable since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

April 9, 2025 0

Japan Osaka court holds same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional

The Osaka High Court held that Japan’s lack of recognition of same-sex marriage is unconstitutional on Tuesday. The Osaka High Court is the fifth court to rule that the ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional after similar rulings in the high courts of Sapporo, Tokyo, Fukuoka and Nagoya.

While Presiding Judge Kumiko Honda upheld the Osaka District Court’s decision not to award damages, Honda ruled that Japan’s Civil Code and Family Register Act that do not allow same-sex marriage violates the right to equality as set out in Article 14 of the Constitution of Japan, which states: “All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.” The court also ruled that the marriage ban breaches Article 24, where laws involving marriage and family “shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes.”

In 2019, three same-sex couples filed a lawsuit against the Japanese government, requesting 1 million yen (about $7,400) in damages per person from the state. They were among 14 couples who filed lawsuits in Sapporo, Tokyo, Nagoya, Fukuoka and Osaka. The plaintiffs had appealed to the High Court after the Osaka District Court in June of 2022 ruled that the lack of same-sex marriage recognition was constitutional under the 1947 constitution as marriage was for heterosexual unions only, making the same-sex marriage ban lawful.

Japan is the only International Group of Seven (G7) country that does not recognise same-sex marriage. Human Rights Watch put out a dispatch highlighting how the other G7 countries are encouraging Japan to enact laws to allow same-sex marriage, counter discrimination and uphold protections for sexual and gender minorities. Prior to the May summit in 2023, LGBTQ groups called for Japan’s government to legalise same-sex marriage and while support for the LGBTQ community grows and the Japanese Diet, Japan’s national legislature, passed the Act on Promotion of Public Understanding of Diversity of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, promoting understanding of the LGBTQ.

Amnesty International indicated in a report that protections for sexual and gender minorities are still absent. Currently, in Japan, same-sex couples have some recognition from local governments, such as “partnership certificates,” offering some rights, but these do not give rights such as inheritance, spousal visits or parental recognition.

March 27, 2025 0