Court gay
Mauritius supreme court upholds gay rights, sets aside ‘discriminatory’ penal code provision
Read judgment
Given controversial anti-gay laws in some parts of Africa, and the rationale for those laws, it’s perhaps important to start off by spelling out what this significant new verdict, delivered last week by the supreme court of Mauritius, does not do.
It does not approve sex with children; it does not permit bestiality; it does not permit gay rape, or sex that isn’t consensual; it does not permit sex in public. All these actions are still unlawful.
In short, its only change is to decriminalise same-sex attracted sex, between consenting adults, in private. More specifically, the opinion declares that section (1) of the criminal code of Mauritius is unconstitutional because it discriminates against gay men.
Homophobia
The judgment was written in response to an action brought by Abdool Ah Seek, a gay Mauritian gentleman, together with a local non-government association that campaigns against all forms of homophobia, and that was admitted as an interested party.
Seek argued
Idaho Republican legislators dial on SCOTUS to reverse same-sex marriage ruling
The Idaho Property passed a resolution Monday calling on the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision on gay marriage equality.
The court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision established the right to queer marriage under the equal protection clause and the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.
The resolution comes after Associate Justice Clarence Thomas’s expressed interest in revisiting the Obergefell decision in his concurring belief on the Supreme Court's landmark view on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that overturned the federal right to abortion.
Thomas, who issued a dissenting opinion in against same-sex marriage, wrote in , "In future cases, we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process judgment is 'demonstrably erroneous,' we have a duty to 'correct the error' established in those precedents."
Lawrence v. Texas over
Unlike children, gays and lesbians do not have a special section in the Bill of Rights dedicated to their rights. Rather, the relevant part of section 9 of the Constitution, entitled "Equality", states that:
"(3) The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social source, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, doctrine, culture, language and birth."
Gays and lesbians are protected by the inclusion of sexual orientation as one of the listed grounds on which unfair discrimination may not take place.
The listing of specific cases in section 9(3) does not mean, however, that to be considered unconstitutional, discrimination would have to be based on one of the grounds mentioned.
Gay rights might enjoy protection even in the absence of the specific reference to sexual orientation. But their explicit mentioning gives our Bill of Rights a special place in the world: South Africa was the first territory to enshrine gay rights in its Constitut
Some Republican lawmakers increase calls against gay marriage SCOTUS ruling
Conservative legislators are increasingly speaking out against the Supreme Court’s landmark verdict on same-sex marriage equality.
Idaho legislators began the trend in January when the state House and Senate passed a resolution calling on the Supreme Court to reconsider its conclusion -- which the court cannot do unless presented with a case on the issue. Some Republican lawmakers in at least four other states appreciate Michigan, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota acquire followed suit with calls to the Supreme Court.
In North Dakota, the resolution passed the state Property with a vote of and is headed to the Senate. In South Dakota, the state’s Property Judiciary Committee sent the proposal on the 41st Legislative Day –deferring the bill to the closing day of a legislative session, when it will no longer be considered, and effectively killing the bill.
In Montana and Michigan, the bills have yet to face legislative scrutiny.
Resolutions have no legal command and are not binding law, but instead grant legislati