On November 10 the Supreme Court kiboshed an opportunity to overturn the constitutional right to same-sex marriage by denying an appeal from Kim Davis. Davis, if you recall, is that troll of a county clerk from Kentucky who has been married four times and who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2015 […]
France Redefines Rape
In the wake of the sensational Gisèle Pelicot gang-rape trial, the French Senate unanimously approved a bill, previously approved by the National Assembly, to redefine rape as any sexual act without consent, defined as “freely given, informed, specific, prior, and revocable.” This makes rape easier to prove than the previous standard, which required an expression […]
Colorado Court Considers Whether Sex Offender Registration Is Punishment
The Colorado Supreme Court has heard a case arguing that lifetime registration is “cruel and unusual punishment” due to the use of flawed and uncertain assessment tools to predict the likelihood of an individual re-offending and the generally low rate of re-offense in this population. The federal courts, including the Supreme Court in a 2003 […]
Pray and Prey: Fundamentalist Pastors and Child Abuse
An investigation by NBC news reveals a 50-year pattern of covering up child abuse by pastors, youth leaders, and church volunteers in the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination. Aspects of the church’s theology, which emphasizes both forgiveness and divine “anointment” of pastors gifted with charismatic powers, have created an environment of reluctance […]
25 Arrested for Attending Same-Sex Wedding in Nigeria
The Hisba Board (religious police) in Kano, a mostly Muslim region in Northern Nigeria, have arrested 25 people attending the wedding of two men, accusing them of “organising same sex marriage.” The situation for LGBT people in Muslim countries continues to deteriorate, as we also see with new anti-LGBT legislation proposed by the government even […]
Sexual Vigilantes Arrested in Texas
The Sheriff’s Department in Waco, Texas, arrested three members of the Oklahoma Predators Prevention Group after a confrontation they organized that caused a local man to be injured. This group mimics police tactics by posting fictitious profiles of underage girls and luring their victims into explicit conversations and an arranged meeting, which the group monetizes […]
Federal Appeals Court Says Inmates Have No Right to Medical Transition
The federal appeals court for the 2nd circuit overturned a trial court decision to rule that prison inmates “have no clearly established rights to be treated by gender-dysphoria specialists or to receive specific treatments for gender dysphoria.” The case concerned a biologically male inmate serving a 75 year sentence for murder in Connecticut, who sought […]
Filipino Cruise Workers Harassed with False Pornography Charges
We have featured stories in the past where suspicions of sexual immorality are manipulated as excuses to apprehend immigrants. In one of the latest examples of this phenomenon, Customs and Border Patrol agents used trumped-up charges of possessing illegal images of minors to coerce 18 Filipino workers on a Carnival cruise ship, who had valid […]
Is Making a False Rape Allegation Sexual Harassment?
In a lawsuit against the University of Maryland, federal district judge Paula Xinis ruled that the university was negligent in failing to protect a falsely accused male student from a defamatory campaign by a female student and a campus support group called Preventing Sexual Assault. This campaign resulted in the male student being kicked off […]
Is Non-Affirming Counseling for Gender Dysphoria “Conversion Therapy”?
On October 7, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar, the case challenging Colorado’s ban on counseling for gender dysphoria that does not seek to affirm gender transition as the best path forward for the patient. Much of the legal debate concerns whether psychotherapy is medical treatment (conduct that can be […]