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3 same-sex couples sue Houston for trying to yank marital benefits
Benefits at risk after conservative residents sued to stop the city from issuing them
By John Riley on August 11, 2017	@JohnAndresRiley
Houston City Hall – Photo: Daniel2986, via Wikimedia.
Three city employees and their same-sex spouses are suing the city of Houston and Mayor Sylvester Turner to preserve health care and other same-sex marital benefits for city employees.
The benefits are at risk of being rescinded after two conservative residents, including a pastor, convinced the Texas Supreme Court to allow them to pursue their own lawsuit asking the city to stop granting benefits to people in same-sex relationships.
"Our clients are angered by the notion that in 2017 their marriages would be deemed inferior to other marriages," Kenneth Upton, senior counsel in Lambda Legal's South Central Regional Office in Dallas, said in a statement. "Today we are standing up for lesbian, gay, and bisexual Houston city workers and their same-sex spouses against those who seek to demean and diminish them."
The married couples' lawsuit also asks the federal court to prevent the city of Houston from forcing employees who have received marital benefits to pay back the city — something opponents of same-sex marriage have demanded ever since the benefits began being issued under former Mayor Annise Parker's administration.
The lawsuit is similar to one that Lambda Legal filed four years ago when Houston taxpayers Jack Pidgeon and Larry Hicks filed suit against the Parker administration, alleging that the mayor had no right to issue benefits to same-sex couples because of Texas' ban on same-sex marriage. The benefits had been issued in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Windsor striking down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act and finding that same-sex couples should not be subject to disparate treatment.
After the Windsor decision, a state district judge in Texas ruled in favor of Pidgeon and Hicks, but the Texas Court of Appeals reversed that ruling following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision legalizing marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges. Lambda then settled and dismissed its original lawsuit asking for the marital benefits to be maintained.
Now, with the Texas Supreme Court paving the way for a lower court to order the city to rescind the benefits, the plaintiffs' lawyers are asking for an injunction to stop the city from revoking them. They also argue that denying the benefits to only same-sex couples would be discriminatory and unconstitutional.
"Termination of medical coverage and related benefits result in harm that is not merely financial, and cannot be later undone through monetary remedies," the brief argues. "Absent these benefits, same-sex spouses of married City employees lack both access to much needed medical care and the right to the qualified provider of their choice. Such loss of benefits and loss of choice constitute irreparable harm."
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One of the daughters of anti-LGBTQ U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has come out as bisexual and said she disagrees with her father's Republican politics.
In a viral video shared to her TikTok, which has since been set to private, Caroline Cruz, 13, discussed life as a senator's daughter.
"A lot of people judge me based upon him at first glance," she said. "But I really disagree with most of his views."
Cruz revealed the benefits that she and her sister -- Ted Cruz has two daughters -- enjoyed, such as getting "candy and gifts in the mail. We also get to travel sometimes."
Trans middle schooler can sue West Virginia over athlete ban, judge rules
Judge finds 11-year-old cross country runner has plausibly argued that she is being discriminated against by the law.
By John Riley on December 6, 2021	@JohnAndresRiley
A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit from a transgender middle school runner challenging West Virginia's ban on transgender students participating in sports teams that match their gender identity.
The law was passed predominantly by Republicans, who argued that allowing transgender athletes to participate in female-designated sports denies cisgender athletes the chance to excel and potentially compete for athletic scholarships.
Becky Pepper-Jackson, who wished to join her middle school's girls' cross country team, sued after the law went into effect, asking for a court order to block the law from being enforced on the grounds that it violates her right to equal protection and discriminates against her based on sex.
Lisa Dykes and Nina Marano removed their ankle monitors and fled Dallas on Christmas Day
Police are searching for a married lesbian couple who removed their ankle monitors and fled after being charged with murder in Texas.
Lisa Dykes, 58, and Nina Marano, 50, have been charged in connection with the murder of Marisela Botello-Valadez, who was stabbed to death in October 2020.
Botello-Valadez flew to Dallas from Seattle, Was., to visit a friend and disappeared while on a night out alone. She was last spotted with Charles Beltran, 32, who was Dykes' and Marano's roommate.
Her body was found six months later, in March 2021, in a wooded area about 15 miles south of Dallas, WFAA reports.
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Related Itemsannise parkerdefense of marriage actHoustonlambda legalObergefell v. HodgesPidgeon v. Turnersame-sex couplesspousal benefitsSylvester Turnertexasticker