Pride Month: The State Of LGBTQ Protection In Virginia

VIRGINIA — A wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation across the country could add a layer of activism and sense of urgency to June Pride Month celebrations in Virginia and around the country.

Pride Month, observed June 1-30 nationwide, honors the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, five days of riots after police raided the Stonewall Inn that became a watershed moment for gay rights. Homosexual acts were illegal in every state but Illinois at the time, and bars and restaurants could be shut down just by having a gay employee or serving a gay patron.

As part of Pride Month, the Capital Pride Alliance will recognize leaders and activists at Penn Social in D.C. on Friday. The event kicks off LGBTQ Pride Month celebrations in the D.C. area.

Among the honorees is Fairfax County School Board member Karl Frisch (Providence District) who will receive a “Heroes Award.” Frisch is the first openly LGBTQ local elected official in Fairfax County and the only out school board member in Virginia.

Arlington County will hold a Pride Month Proclamation and Celebration on June 15 in Courthouse Plaza. The event, at 1:30 p.m., is organized by OUTstanding, an Arlington Employee Resource Group representing county employees, and will celebrate living and working in a safe and supportive community.

Here are other events planned in Virginia and the D.C. area during Pride Month:

• June 4 - Reston Pride: Saturday, June 4 from noon-6 p.m., Lake Anne Plaza
• June 7 - Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Pride Month Resolution: Tuesday, June 7 at 9:30 a.m., 12000 Government Center Pkwy
• June 11 - Capital Pride Parade: Saturday, June 11 from 3 p.m.-7:30 p.m., Logan and Dupont Circle neighborhoods
• June 12 - Capital Pride Festival: Sunday, June 12 from noon-10 p.m., America’s Mainstreet, Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC
• June 16 - Fairfax County Public Schools Pride Month Resolution (Website): Thursday, June 16 at 7 p.m, Luther Jackson Middle School, 3020 Gallows Rd, Falls Church
• June 24 - Northern Virginia Pride Prom: Friday, June 24 at 7pm, The St. James, 6805 Industrial Rd, Springfield
• June 25 - Mosaic Pride: Saturday, June 25 at 1 p.m., Mosaic District, 2910 District Ave, Fairfax
• June 26 - Loudoun County Pride: Sunday, June 26 from 1 p.m.-8 p.m., Heritage Farm Museum, 21668 Heritage Farm Lane, Sterling

The uneasiness hanging over this year’s celebration stems from a wave of legislation ranging from “don’t say gay” laws — prohibiting public schools from using curriculums addressing gender identity and sexual orientation, introduced in 20 states and now law in Florida and Alabama — to trans athlete sports bans in 15 states.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, legislation targeting transgender and nonbinary people also bars or criminalizes health care for transgender youth; prohibits transgender persons from using facilities, such as restrooms, corresponding with their gender identity; allows religiously motivated discrimination against transgender people; and makes it more difficult to get identification documents with their name and gender.

In Virginia, LGBTQ rights have been protected in recent legislative sessions, according to the ACLU. Virginia became the first Southern state to enact comprehensive non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people when former Gov. Ralph Northam signed the Virginia Values Act in 2020.

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The legislation prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, public or private employment, public spaces and credit transactions. It also lays out causes of action that would allow individuals to sue over alleged discrimination.

During the 2022 General Assembly session, Republican state lawmakers introduced anti-transgender legislation. Sen. Jen Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach/Norfolk) sponsored a bill that would have banned transgender students from participating in sports that align with their gender identity. The bill got voted down in committee.

Another bill that would have allowed school boards to opt out of policies and guidelines developed by the Virginia Department of Education that were designed to make school environments more inclusive for transgender and nonbinary students also was defeated in committee.

As anti-LGBTQ groups and individuals continue to target schools in Virginia, Frisch said "the real heroes are our LGBTQ+ students who show up at school each day with remarkable authenticity demanding respect for who they are, and our LGBTQ+ educators who serve as incredible role models at a time when their simple existence is under attack.”

On LGBTQ policy, Virginia got a rating of "medium" from the Movement Advancement Project, or MAP, an independent, nonprofit think tank that researches equality legislation.

Other Southern states like Florida and Texas received a "low" rating, while Georgia got a "negative" rating, the lowest possible rating in how a state protects LBGTQ people.

According to MAP, 3.9 percent of adult Virginians identify as LGBTQ. Twenty-six percent of LBGTQ people 25 and older are raising children, according to the research.

MAP's analysis looks at laws and policies that help drive equality for LGBTQ people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five populated territories. The major areas represented in the policy tally covered relationship and parental recognition, nondiscrimination, religious exemptions, LGBTQ youth, health care, criminal justice and identity documents.

Is Outlawing Same-Sex Marriage Next?

LGBTQ advocates’ concern stems not only from what has happened in statehouses, but also the very real concern that a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court could return the issue of same-sex marriage to states to decide, just as the court’s majority is expected to do with abortion rights, according to a leaked Supreme Court opinion draft of the decision expected later this month or next.

Legal experts are divided on whether the Supreme Court’s watershed ruling legalizing same-sex marriage is in jeopardy, with the expected ruling striking down constitutional protections on a woman’s right to an abortion.

University of Texas law professor Elizabeth Sepper, an expert on health care law and religion, told Reuters that Americans are right to worry.

“The low-hanging fruit is contraception, probably starting with emergency contraception, and same-sex marriage is also low-hanging fruit in that it was very recently recognized by the Supreme Court,” Sepper said.

In his dissent of Obergefell v. Hodges, the case at the center of the 2015 same-sex marriage ruling, Justice Samuel Alito used language similar to that in the leaked draft on abortion.

In his same-sex marriage dissent and the leaked opinion draft, Alito mentioned neither right is guaranteed in the Constitution and both issues should be left to states to decide, Jordan Woods, faculty director of the LGBTQ Law & Policy Program at the University of Arkansas, told The Washington Post.

Opponents of same-sex marriage could use Alito’s logic in attempts to overturn Obergefell, Woods said, noting that judges dissenting against a 2003 opinion striking down the Texas sodomy ban relied on similar reasoning.

“Ultimately, what the court will do, nobody knows,” Woods said. But Alito’s “draft absolutely provides a blueprint for the court essentially eroding or even overturning important constitutional precedents that are in this area of privacy that clearly this draft opinion is hostile towards.”

Katie Eyer, a professor specializing in anti-discrimination law at Rutgers University, told The Post she doubts there’s much appetite even in conservative states to begin the appeal process. Although divisions exist, about 61 percent of Americans strongly favor same-sex marriage, according to a 2019 Pew Research Center poll.

For his part, Alito tempered those concerns, asserting in the draft majority opinion on abortion leaked to Politico that his reasoning was not intended to apply to any right beyond abortion.

“We emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right,” wrote Alito, who was appointed to the court by President George W. Bush. “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

Yale Law School professor Douglas NeJaime, who has expertise in sexuality and constitutional law, told The Post that the precedents in Roe v. Wade — the 1973 case that affirmed a woman’s right to an abortion — the Obergefell same-sex decision and the Texas sodomy ban are “fundamentally different.”

“I think the draft opinion is actually trying to say Obergefell is not a target,” NeJaime said. “And I don’t know that that’s true, but it’s at least saying that.”