Phil Murphy signed the bill into law after it received bipartisan support in both houses.
Kitchen followed the lead of New Jersey Assemblyman Donald Guardian, who put forward similar legislation to update New Jersey state law.
“We don’t want to cause panic, but we want to take proactive steps to ensure families are protected.” “There is great unpredictability in the current Supreme Court,” he said on a phone call with reporters Tuesday. The willingness of the court to overturn precedent could, some advocates fear, signal other federally protected rights of minorities may be in jeopardy, such as same-sex marriage, which became the law of the land with the Obergefell v. Overturning precedent and same-sex marriage “If we extrapolate it out, there is a real threat that states could continue passing bans like that and essentially making it the kind of country where there are some states where you can access affirming health care and where you can’t,” Polaski said. Ron DeSantis’ administration moved to restrict transgender care for minors and for trans people of all ages on Medicaid. Last month, Alabama became the third state, after Arkansas and Tennessee, to pass a law restricting the provision of transgender health care and the first to add felony penalties. The Equality Federation estimates at least 35 have passed so far. This session, state legislators introduced more than 340 anti-LGBTQ bills, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which hosted a call for reporters on the topic Tuesday. “The threat to the freedom to marry is real, but there are even bigger and more imminent dangers that we need to address, and if we address those dangers, we will protect ourselves against the potential threat to the freedom to marry that may be down the road.” Abortion access and transgender health careĬathryn Oakley, an attorney with the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights group, stressed that the high court’s forthcoming abortion decision will have a direct impact on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. “The threat to women and to reproductive rights is already enough,” Evan Wolfson, the founder of Freedom to Marry, told NBC News. However, LGBTQ advocates caution against too much speculation about the fate of same-sex marriage, and instead urge attention to the immediate impact caused by a reversal of the Roe and the Casey rulings and the ongoing attacks on LGBTQ rights at the state levels. Hodges, which Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas have already signaled they would like to reverse. Should the official decision mirror the leaked draft, LGBTQ advocates worry about the immediate implications on LGBTQ health and whether the court’s willingness to overturn precedent could extend to the 2015 landmark Supreme Court case Obergefell v.