WASHINGTON — Fresh off their biggest legal victory, gay rights supporters began to expand their efforts beyond same-sex marriage to a broad push to rewrite civil rights law and extend protections to other personal and financial actions.
A coalition spanning gay rights groups and traditional African-American leaders turned its attention to a new legislative bid to outlaw discrimination against homosexuals in employment, housing, financial dealings and other regular actions not protected under the Supreme Court’s ruling declaring same-sex marriage a constitutional right.
“You can be married on Saturday, post your pictures on Instagram on Sunday and fired from your job on Monday,” Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., the lead sponsor in the House of the new legislation, said Saturday.
After Friday’s ruling, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., the sponsor of the legislation in that chamber, e-mailed thousands of supporters asking them to get behind the new bid because, despite the marriage decision, it is still legal in some states to “kick someone out of a diner or other public accommodation because of who they love.”
While Cicilline and Merkley plan to formally introduce the legislation next month, they acknowledged that it will be an uphill battle in the near term to win approval of an expansive gay rights agenda. Republican leaders in Congress, while trying to avoid inflammatory statements about the decision, have shown no appetite for a debate that would open up gay rights beyond what the federal courts have established.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, expressed concern that conservative institutions would be forced to take actions against their religiously held beliefs opposed to gay marriage. “Everyone deserves to be treated with respect, and nobody should have their deeply held religious beliefs trampled by their government,” he said after the ruling.
On the campaign trail some Republican contenders for the 2016 presidential nomination grabbed hold of the Supreme Court ruling to try to appeal to social conservatives in key early primary states. After Friday’s ruling, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee that would have oversight of Merkley’s legislation, called for elections that could be held to throw justices off the Supreme Court.
In the short run, gay rights supporters also focused on shoring up implementation of the court’s marriage ruling, as some of the most conservative-leaning states have governors or attorneys general who are refusing to uphold the decision and allow same-sex marriages in their states.
Campaign for Southern Equality, which has worked to advance gay marriage rights, filed a brief with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans and covering a bloc of Southern states, asking those judges to immediately lift their stay on a lower-court ruling in Mississippi that allowed for same-sex weddings. Despite the ruling, state Attorney General Jim Hood said that the federal courts in his region need to act first, leaving same-sex marriage blocked in Mississippi.
