{"id":3400,"date":"2015-03-27T19:48:36","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T19:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=3400"},"modified":"2015-03-27T19:48:36","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T19:48:36","slug":"new-group-focused-on-equality-for-texas-lgbt-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=3400","title":{"rendered":"New Group Focused on Equality for Texas LGBT Community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>by John Michaelson\/TNS<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>AUSTIN, Texas &#8211; As the legal battle continues in Texas over same-sex marriage, a new group is forming to help members of the state\u2019s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community overcome challenges in all aspects of their daily lives.<\/p>\n<p>Kelsey Snapp, a staff attorney for Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, said the working group will bring together a number of organizations that are part of the Equal Voice Network, with a first meeting expected next month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKind of set priorities and see what the needs are in the community and what expertise our organizations have, what our organizations have already been doing,\u201d he said. \u201cHow can we coordinate, that type of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3401\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3401\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3401\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/gr-45093-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments next month on the constitutionality of state bans on same-sex marriage, as is currently the law in Texas. Photo: us006409\/Flickrl.\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" srcset=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/gr-45093-1-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/gr-45093-1-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/gr-45093-1-1-405x269.jpg 405w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/gr-45093-1-1-60x40.jpg 60w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3401\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments next month on the constitutionality of state bans on same-sex marriage, as is currently the law in Texas. Photo: us006409\/Flickrl.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>While great strides have been made over the last decade, Snapp said, there are still a number of struggles facing the LGBT community in Texas, from bullying in schools to workplace discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>There also is the ban on same-sex marriage, an issue about which the U.S. Supreme Court will take oral arguments next month. The court will consider whether state bans are constitutional, Snapp said, and, if the court decides that they are, \u201cthen the second issue that they would look at is whether states like Texas would still be required to recognize marriages from outside of the state.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo for example, right now, if a same-sex couple gets married in California and they move here, the state of Texas doesn\u2019t consider them married for any purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court will hear the arguments on marriage equality on April 28, with a ruling expected by late June.<\/p>\n<p>More information about the Equal Voice Network is online at <a href=\"http:\/\/rgvequalvoicenetwork.blogspot.com\" target=\"_blank\">rgvequalvoicenetwork.blogspot.com<\/a>. Information on the Supreme Court case is at<a href=\"http:\/\/scotusblog.com\" target=\"_blank\"> scotusblog.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by John Michaelson\/TNS AUSTIN, Texas &#8211; As the legal battle continues in Texas over same-sex marriage, a new group is forming to help members of the state\u2019s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community overcome challenges in all aspects of their daily lives. Kelsey Snapp, a staff attorney for Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, said the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-web-exclusive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3402,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3400\/revisions\/3402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}