WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch showed his true stance on equal rights for LGBTQ people after authoring the dissent for the Pavan v. Smith case Monday, which granted married same-sex couples the right to have names of both parents on their child’s birth certificates. Justice Gorsuch’s choice to be the lead in the dissent opinion is the latest example in his long history of anti-LGBTQ activism.
In another case, the U.S. Supreme Court, Monday ruled 6-3 in favor of same-sex couples who complained that an Arkansas birth certificate law discriminated against them, reversing a state court’s ruling that married lesbian couples must get a court order to have both spouses listed on their children’s birth certificates. Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the ruling. In the dissenting opinion, Gorsuch wrote that “nothing in Obergefell indicates that a birth registration regime based on biology, one no doubt with many analogues across the country and throughout history, offends the Constitution.”
Pavan v. Smith could be viewed as a compass on how the nation’s highest court could land on the upcoming Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case, which questions a person’s ability to use religion as a weapon to openly discriminate against LGBTQ Americans based on so-called “religious exemption” grounds. The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it would take up this case in the fall.
