Tag: Nevada

Top Anti-Gay Lawyer Inadvertently Tells Court That Brown v. Board of Education Was Wrongly Decided

Wow.

Monte Neil Stewart is the lead attorney defending Nevada’s practice of anti-gay marriage discrimination and he’s a member of the legal team defending similar discrimination in Utah. He also just told a federal appeals court that Brown v. Board of Education was wrongly decided and we should return to the days when public school discrimination was allowed.

Stewart didn’t say so in explicit terms, but that’s the clear consequence of an argument he just presented to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, as part of his effort to defeat marriage equality in that state. Although both Nevada’s Democratic Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto and its Republican Governor Brian Sandoval agree that their state’s marriage discrimination law cannot “withstand legal scrutiny,” Stewart continues to defend unequal treatment for same-sex couples as the attorney for the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage.

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Republican Activists Push Party On Gay Marriage

Hopefully there will be a better response if the push comes from within.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — As bans against gay marriage crumble and public opinion on the issue shifts rapidly, some Republicans are pushing the party to drop its opposition to same-sex unions, part of a broader campaign to get the GOP to appeal to younger voters by de-emphasizing social issues.

This month, the Nevada Republican party dropped statements on marriage from its party platform, making it the second state party in the nation to do so after Indiana’s GOP quietly jettisoned its plank in 2012. A gay-rights group last week launched a $1 million campaign to get the national party to remove from its platform a definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, while a group of major Republican donors is pushing for the GOP to become more supportive of gay rights across the board.

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Ellen Page Comes Out As Gay

Another unexpected announcement, but couldn’t be from a lovelier young woman.

On Feb. 14, at a Human Rights Campaign conference for LGBT youths, 26-year-old actress Ellen Page publicly announced that she is gay.

The former Oscar nominee gave a moving and emotional speech about her wish to live “an open and authentic life.”

“I’m here today because I am gay,” Page told an audience in Las Vegas, NV at the Time to Thrive conference for LGBT youth. “And because maybe I can make a difference. To help others have an easier and more hopeful time. Regardless, for me, I feel a personal obligation and a social responsibility.”

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