Gsbt

FILE PHOTO: A gender-neutral bathroom is seen at the University of California, Irvine in Irvine, California, U.S. FILE PHOTO: A gender-neutral bathroom is seen at the University of California, Irvine in Irvine, California, U.S., September 30, 2014.      The Republican-controlled Texas Senate gave preliminary approval on Tuesday to a bill that restricts bathroom access for transgender people, endorsing a piece of legislation denounced by civil liberties advocates as discriminatory. Final Senate adoption of the bill was possible later on Tuesday or Wednesday. The measure would then be sent to the state House of Representatives, where passage during a 30-day special legislative session that ends in mid-August is less certain despite a Republican majority in that body as well. The preliminary vote in the Senate was 21-10, with one Democrat crossing the aisle to vote with the Republican majority in favor of the measure, Senate Bill 3. Enactment in Texas, the most-...

The Washington Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that a florist who refused to provide services for a same-sex wedding broke the state's antidiscrimination law. Barronelle Stutzman, a florist in Richland, Washington, had been fined by a lower court for denying service to a gay couple in 2013. Stutzman said she was exercising her First Amendment rights, and her lawyers immediately said they would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Thursday's decision. She had previously sold the couple flowers and knew they were gay. However, Stutzman told them that she couldn't provide flowers for their wedding because same-sex marriage was incompatible with her Christian beliefs. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson and the couple sued her, saying she broke state anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws, and the lower court agreed. The state's nine high court justices upheld that verdict. The case thrust the great-grandmother into the national spotlight and she te...