Now more than ever, with states passing "Don't Say Gay" laws, criminalizing parents for helping their trans children, and attacking the rights and lives of the members of our community, it is time for us to come together, show our pride and our strength as a community, and stand up for our rights. We need to get out the vote of every American--gay and straight, cis and trans, black, brown, white and every color of the rainbow in-between.

In addition to the discriminatory laws that are being enacted to limit our rights, criminalize our families and medical professionals, eliminate protections, and do harm to trans children, we also have to worry about what will happen with Roe v. Wade. It's not just about a woman's right to choose or about safe access to medical care--much more is at stake, for us and for all Americans.

Why? Because Roe affirms what was initially laid out in Griswold, namely, the right to privacy There is no explicit right to privacy in the Constitution, and you will see no mention of privacy anywhere in that foundational document; instead, the justices argued in both of these landmark cases that "in the penumbra" of the first, fourth, fifth, and ninth amendments, something like a right to privacy is protected, and that your body and your bedroom are zones of privacy covered by this right. If the state wants to limit that right or intrude on that zone, it must have a "compelling state interest" to do so, without violating the due process that every citizen of the US enjoys by virtue of the fourteenth amendment.

So what's that got to do with the LGBTQ+ community? Homosexuality was formally decrimilinalized only in 2003, believe it or not, in Lawrence v. Texas, and a key element of that opinion was predicated on the right to privacy established by Griswold and Roe. Without that protection, individual states may seek to re-criminalize homosexuality. Can you imagine? And more recently, Obergefell, which made marraige equality the law of the land, also depended, at least in part, on the right to privacy. If states are allowed to regulate marriage without this constitutional protection in place, then marriage equality may be struck down. Imagine the impact that will have on families.