Kramer Levin has filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari to review a Fifth Circuit ruling on standing that had the effect of letting Mississippi's sweeping anti-LGBT law go into effect last month.  HB 1523 protects specifically enumerated religious beliefs above all others – namely, that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, that sexual relations are properly confined to such a marriage, and that sex is an innate characteristic assigned at birth and cannot change – and allows public officials, businesses, doctors, and others to invoke the enumerated beliefs as justification for refusing treatment and service to LGBT persons.

A federal district court judge struck down HB 1523 as unconstitutional in June 2016, but following an appeal by state officials, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held in June 2017 that plaintiff religious and LGBT groups and individuals lacked standing to challenge the law. The Fifth Circuit thus vacated the lower court injunction in the consolidated cases of Barber v. Bryant and Campaign for Southern Equality v. Bryant and ordered the suits dismissed. After the full Fifth Circuit sitting en banc upheld that decision, plaintiffs in Barber in October 2017 filed a petition for a writ of certiorari asking the Supreme Court to review the standing decision.

Kramer Levin earlier filed an amicus brief in the Fifth Circuit in support of plaintiffs-appellees in both cases on behalf of diverse institutional religious leaders, entities, and congregations that affirm the inherent dignity and equality of LGBT persons and believe it is wrong for any state to sanction discrimination based on the religious beliefs of only some of its citizens. The firm's new brief urging the Court to review the standing decision was filed on behalf of many of the same signatories, including the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the General Synod of the United Church of Christ, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Religious Institute, and national Methodist, Muslim, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Quaker faith organizations.

The new brief echoes the firm's Fifth Circuit brief and earlier ones filed in marriage equality cases documenting the growing range of religious traditions that respect the dignity of LGBT persons and their families and support civil marriage equality and equal treatment under law for LGBT individuals. The brief points out that HB 1523 throws the weight of the state behind anti-LGBT religious views that are offensive to a growing cross-section of the American religious community, and argues that the Court should recognize standing for religious individuals and organizations to challenge laws that endorse certain religious views and implicitly denigrate others, inflicting dignitary and stigmatic injury on the disfavored religious actors.

The Kramer Levin team that drafted the brief includes Litigation partners Jeffrey S. Trachtman and Norman C. Simon and associates Jason M. Moff and Kurt M. Denk, with assistance from associates Evie Spanos and Timur Tusiray.  

Kramer Levin has played a leading role in pro bono LGBT rights litigation for nearly two decades. The firm has previously submitted amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dale, Lawrence, Windsor, Perry and Obergefell cases, and in numerous predecessor cases before various of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and was co-counsel in Hernandez v. Robles, the case seeking equal marriage rights under the New York State Constitution.

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