The members of the Cleveland City Council have unanimously approved anti-discrimination legislation protecting the right of transgender people to use restrooms and other facilities consistent with their gender identity. While city law prohibited anti-transgender discrimination in employment and public accommodations, due to exemptions in the 2009 legislation, transgender people have continued to face legal discrimination…
Ohio voted Tuesday against legalizing recreational and medical marijuana via an amendment to the state’s constitution, shooting down a proposal to grant a small number of wealthy investors sole permission to operate commercial marijuana farms. The initiative has been controversial, even among many marijuana legalization supporters, because its drafters included a provision that set aside…
Today, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) released a video of Jim Obergefell, who’s lived in Ohio for nearly five decades, asking candidates to defend his marriage and those of countless same-sex couples across the country, in advance of tonight’s debate in Cleveland. Obergefell was the named plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, Obergefell v. Hodges,…
In a continuing fight within the Boy Scouts of America, another Eagle Scout and adult leader within the organization has been unceremoniously fired. Brian Peffly, 35, was ousted in March from a Columbus, Ohio chapter of the Boy Scouts simply because he is gay. A lifetime scout who achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, Peffly…
As local, state and national reaction over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration act continues to roil the Hoosier state, its neighbor to the East, Ohio, has begun to take advantage. Reporting on the blog Plunderbund, John Michael Spinelli notes, “While one neighbor might help another neighbor put out a fire, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown was joined…
To her surprise and disappointment, lawyer Dana Nessel, who will represent April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse from Michigan in this year’s Supreme Court debate over same-sex marriage, has found out that her biggest adversaries aren’t anti-gay groups like the National Organization for Marriage and the Southern Baptist Convention. Rather, they are the poster children of…
Same-sex marriage is heading back to the Supreme Court as married same-sex couples asked the Supreme Court Friday to hear their appeal of a recent appeals court ruling upholding Ohio’s ban on recognizing their marriages, which were granted in other states, reports Buzzfeed. “These cases are about love, from birth to death,” the lawyers for…
Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned lower court rulings that struck down Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee bans on marriage equality. Until today, no state marriage ban had survived a federal circuit court ruling. What’s more, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an order last month allowing the…
The 2014 Gay Games, a sporting event similar to the Olympics with an LGBT twist, is already making history. The games will be held from Aug. 9-16 in Cleveland and Akron, Ohio. Although this is the ninth games for the quadrennial event, this year’s festivities are groundbreaking in several ways. It’s the first Games to…
Today, U.S. District Judge Timothy Black struck down part of a constitutional amendment in Ohio that denies gay couples the freedom to marry and withholds legal respect for gay couples who have gotten married. He ordered the state to treat couples married elsewhere like any other couples who marry out of state — as married….
