These 6 Texas lawsuits could radically impact LGBTQ rights
Former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell is representing clients in six separate lawsuits in the state targeting LGBTQ rights. As The Dallas Morning News reports, the cases are currently making their way through state and federal courts and could have dire consequences for LGBTQ rights throughout the U.S.
Mitchell is credited with coming up with the Texas law that allows private citizens to sue those who help pregnant people access abortions. In a 2021 Supreme Court brief, he argued that the decisions that legalized same-sex relations and same-sex marriages in all 50 states should both be overturned along with Roe v. Wade, a sentiment echoed by Justice Clarence Thomas in his concurrence in the court’s recent decision striking down Roe.
In 2018, he opened his one-man law firm with the express purpose of bringing cases involving religious freedom, abortion, and affirmative action before the Supreme Court’s new conservative majority.
Two of the lawsuits Mitchell has filed involving LGBTQ rights concern same-sex marriage. Dianne Hensley v. State Commission on Judicial Conduct and Brian Keith Umphress v. David Hall, et al., were brought by Texas officials who do not want to perform same-sex marriages because they say it violates their religious beliefs. Umphress explicitly argues that “there is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage” and that the Supreme Court should revisit Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision establishing marriage equality in the U.S.
Another case involving so-called religious freedoms argues that private insurers should not have to cover certain preventive medical care, specifically PrEP. Mitchell’s clients in John Kelley, et al., v. Xavier Becerra object to the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that insurance providers cover such medication.
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