Justice & Law

The Kids Really Are All Right—But Opponents of Marriage Equality Won’t Admit It

PUBLISHED 7/31/2026 by

Within days of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, the administration began erasing LGBTQ+ people from federal websites, while Republican governors across the country rebranded Pride Month as celebrations of the “traditional” or “nuclear” family.

At the same time, public support for marriage equality has begun to slip, and conservative activists are seizing the moment to revive their campaign against Obergefell v. Hodges. Emboldened by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, they are laying the groundwork for a new legal challenge—one designed to persuade the Court’s conservative majority to reconsider the constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

But this latest effort relies on a familiar myth dressed up as a new argument: that children are the “real victims” of marriage equality. The evidence tells a very different story. Decades of research—and a recent meta-analysis examining children’s developmental well-being—show that children raised by same-sex parents do just as well, and in some measures even better, than those raised by heterosexual parents. The real harm comes not from loving families, but from efforts to deny them equal dignity under the law.

Opponents of marriage equality are working hard to revive old attacks on marriage equality. We cannot allow this campaign of erasure to succeed.

The Trump Administration Is Rewriting Sex Education to Promote Parenthood

PUBLISHED 7/31/2026 by

The Trump administration’s hormonal obsession has reached yet another frontier: federal funding for teen pregnancy prevention and sex education.

New grant requirements would shift the focus from preventing unintended pregnancy to planning for it, requiring programs to emphasize menstrual tracking, “reproductive goals” counseling and marriage and parenthood as core values.

The result is a quiet but profound ideological rewrite of evidence-based reproductive health education.

As someone who has long championed menstrual literacy and hormonal fluency, I know context matters. Understanding the menstrual cycle is essential in a post-Dobbs world, where pregnancy is increasingly regulated by the state. But these new guidelines aren’t about empowering young people with knowledge—they’re about advancing a Heritage Foundation-style vision of reproduction and family life through federal policy.

When political dogma masquerades as health education, we should all be paying attention.

Never Surrender: Empowered Wives Were Never the Problem

PUBLISHED 7/31/2026 by

Over the past year, several women-focused articles in the New York Times declared feminism has gone too far, and put the onus on women to fix what is broken.

An article asking if liberal feminism “ruined the workplace” broke the internet late last year.

An article last month featured a conversation with influential, right-wing columnist Louise Perry, about how women need to change, in order to close the growing gap between men and women. Perry’s position justifies re‑inscribing patriarchal control over women’s bodies and sexuality in the name of “protecting” us.

I feel a familiar sense of disappointment in the recent feature, “Women Are Too Controlling, She Wrote. Her Message Still Resonates,” about Laura Doyle, author of The Surrendered Wife, a 2001 self‑help book and the basis for a relationship “movement” that teaches women to relinquish control in their marriages, defer to their husbands’ decisions (including finances), and focus on their own “self‑care” and gratitude to restore intimacy and harmony.

Each article asks a version of the same question: How should women change?

Doyle’s message and the broader “surrendered wife” ideology, is troubling.

What struck me even more was that one of the country’s most influential newspapers presented it as a growing cultural trend, without examining the cultural forces and gender expectations that have long reinforced this ideology.

Women and feminism don’t need to surrender. They were never the problem.    

War on Women Report: Hegseth Blocks Promotions of Women in Navy; Trump Finally Pays E. Jean Carroll; Colorado Police Pray With Abortion Clinic Harassers

PUBLISHED 7/31/2026 by and

MAGA Republicans are back in the White House, and Project 2025 is their guide: the right-wing plan to turn back the clock on women’s rights, remove abortion access, and force women into roles as wives and mothers in the “ideal, natural family structure.”

We know an empowered female electorate is essential to democracy. That’s why day after day, we stay vigilant in our goals to dismantle patriarchy at every turn. We are watching, and we refuse to go back. This is the War on Women Report.

Since our last report:
—Celebrity women are 3.5 times more likely than men to be deepfaked.
—The Department of Health and Human Services abruptly canceled $68 million in federal grants under the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.
—Planned Parenthood clinics regained access to millions of dollars in essential federal funding. The temporary ban was originally approved in July 2025 as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The denial of federal funding over the past year forced Planned Parenthood to close nearly 30 health centers nationwide, impacting roughly 40,000 patients. Despite regaining an estimated $800 million in annual federal funding, ongoing financial uncertainty at both the state and federal levels means the shuttered clinics will not reopen.
—Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner has suspended his campaign after a former girlfriend accused him of raping her nearly five years ago.
—For the first time in a decade, no active-duty women naval officers will be promoted to admiral this year.
—Police officers in Boulder, Colo., were photographed pausing to pray with antiabortion protestors harassing the RISE Collective, an all-trimester abortion clinic, after concerned RISE Collective staff alerted the police of the protestors’ presence.
—Abortion-rights organizers in Idaho have been working to collect signatures for a proposed ballot measure that would restore abortion rights in the state, revoking Idaho’s total ban. On July 2, volunteers gathered in Boise to turn in over 110,000 signatures they collected for the initiative (called the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act). About one-quarter are from registered Republicans, demonstrating support for abortion rights is widespread even in deep red states.

… and more.

Believing Women (or Not) Shapes More Than Sexual Assault Cases

PUBLISHED 7/30/2026 by

Nearly a decade after the rise of #MeToo, public conversations about sexual harassment and assault have entered a new phase—one marked by growing skepticism.

New data from Tulane University’s Newcomb Institute 2025 Violence Experiences Survey suggests that this skepticism extends beyond individual cases. People who are more likely to doubt women’s reports of sexual violence are also more likely to question women’s leadership and their ability to make decisions about their own health.

This matters because believing women—and believing in women—shapes whether survivors come forward, whether they are taken seriously and whether women are trusted in positions of authority. Ultimately, the issue is larger than sexual violence alone. It is about women’s credibility, and whether society trusts women to speak about their own experiences, lead their communities and decide what is best for their health and safety.

As Thousands of Migrant Children Lose Legal Representation, Trump’s ‘Lost Children’ Myth Lives On

PUBLISHED 7/29/2026 by

The Trump administration’s ceaseless attacks on immigrant communities continue to bring tragedy and death to people who are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time: After ICE agents shot into the cars of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, killing both men—neither of whom was even a target of that day’s raid—the Department of Homeland Security agreed to pause its use of traffic stops.

The pause lasted only a few hours: President Trump took to social media to rant against the DHS decision, and it was reversed—signaling that another round of violent deportation efforts are going to be pushed and applauded by this White House.  

Trump’s insistence that traffic stops by ICE agents are a vital mechanism for fighting crime shows how seamlessly he has blurred the lines between being in the country without authorization and committing crimes.

The same thing is happening in the world of unaccompanied children—and I suspect one of the next waves of deportation efforts will be aimed at the sponsors of those children. The Trump administration has spun an elaborate web of lies to paint parents and family members as criminals, participating in trafficking and child exploitation.  

The People’s Bill of Rights 250 Invites Americans to Reimagine the Constitution

PUBLISHED 7/29/2026 by , and

A new online public platform—The People’s Bill of Rights 250—invites Americans to propose, discuss and vote on ideas they believe belong in the Constitution. As the U.S. marks 250 years, the bold, interactive project asks Americans not only to reflect on the nation’s founding, but to help shape its future.

The nonpartisan organization The People and executive director Katie Fahey, alongside a coalition of civic, advocacy and cultural leaders, spearheaded the People’s Bill of Rights 250. It invites Americans to answer a simple question: What freedoms, rights and protections should every person in the country be guaranteed over the next 250 years?  

From now until Friday, July 31, Americans are encouraged to vote and share their own ideas at the People’s Bill of Rights 250’s website.

Todd Blanche Has a Path to Confirmation—Even as Epstein Files Scrutiny Deepens

PUBLISHED 7/29/2026 by | UPDATED 8/7/2026 at 8:01 A.M. PT

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche now appears to have the votes to win Senate confirmation after Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana announced Friday morning that he will support President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney to permanently lead the Justice Department.

Cassidy’s announcement came just hours after Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said she would oppose Blanche, joining Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and briefly putting his confirmation in serious jeopardy. With Republicans holding a 53-47 Senate majority and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) absent, Blanche could afford to lose only two Republican votes if Democrats remain united against him. Cassidy’s support appears to give Blanche exactly the margin he needs, barring another Republican defection.

Murkowski said Friday that she did not have confidence Blanche would serve as a check on the Trump administration, pointing to the Justice Department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, its increasing politicization and the controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” proposed to compensate Trump allies and Jan. 6 defendants.

Cassidy’s decision comes after Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) also agreed to support Blanche following written assurances from the Justice Department that the anti-weaponization fund had been eliminated and that sweeping tax protections included in a settlement involving Trump and his family were limited.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on Blanche’s nomination Wednesday, setting up a path toward a final confirmation vote as senators prepare to leave Washington for the August recess. As of Friday morning, the Senate’s published schedule did not specify a time for the Blanche vote.

Who Gets Remembered? The Fight to Put Women’s History on the National Mall

PUBLISHED 7/29/2026 by

America’s monuments tell us who matters. Yet on the National Mall, where presidents, generals and founding fathers dominate the landscape, women’s contributions remain strikingly absent.

The battle over a permanent Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum exposes how contested women’s place in our national story still is.

The museum’s new exhibit, Unhidden Heroines, uses augmented reality to offer a glimpse of what that story could look like—one in which women are no longer relegated to footnotes but recognized as central figures in shaping the nation.

The exhibit profiles five exceptional women whose substantial contributions to American history have been largely unrecognized or obscured in the historical record: Mary Katharine Goddard, the printer who published the first signed copy of the Declaration of Independence; Dr. Dorothy Height, a civil and women’s rights activist known as the “Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement”; Julia Ward Howe, creator of a rallying cry, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” for the Union cause during the Civil War; Elizebeth Smith Friedman, a cryptanalyst central to cracking Nazi code during World War II; and Polly Cooper, an Oneida woman pivotal to the success of Washington’s Continental Army.

Despite strong bipartisan support for the brick-and-mortar women’s museum project—and having raised tens of millions of dollars for its establishment—momentum for the public-private partnership suffered a setback on the Hill: The bill that would have finalized the museum’s location on the Mall was scuttled after Republicans added anti-trans language barring the depiction of “any biological male as a female” in its exhibits and giving President Trump control over selection of its location.  

It’s not the first time the administration has claimed to protect women’s rights while actually setting back their interests or causing them harm.

Domestic Violence Is a Men’s Issue

PUBLISHED 7/28/2026 by

Nearly one in two women has experienced domestic violence (DV) in their lifetime, yet accountability remains limited, as nearly half of survivors never report their abuse to law enforcement. Out of fear of retribution, survivors often minimize harm and shield their perpetrator’s behavior, shifting responsibility away from them: “That’s just how men are,” or “He didn’t mean it.” DV affects almost everyone—directly or indirectly. Nearly half of people know someone who has experienced it, through personal experience, witnessing it in childhood, seeing loved ones endure it or encountering it in public spaces. 

DV has taught me about silence. The silence of victims who feared retaliation or shame. The silence of witnesses like me who did not know how to intervene. And the silence of communities that preferred to avoid conflict and not to disrupt the image of a functional family. Silence does not protect anyone; it allows the harm to continue. 

In America, toxic masculinity thrives in that silence. It discourages men from seeking help, discourages women from speaking out and discourages bystanders from stepping in. Over time, domestic violence becomes predictable as patterns emerge—slammed doors, raised voices, a tension that fills rooms before anyone speaks.

Over time, beneath their rage, I’ve come to understand that many male abusers are suffering too or have suffered. The problem is, intimate partner violence will not end by ignoring men. This raises essential questions beyond how did we get here, in a nation that champions violence and spends more on its military than on education and social services. For example, who is intervening to address husbands and boyfriends who batter? What tools are needed to support men in building lives free from violence? Let’s be clear, addressing these challenging concerns will not only benefit men, but also their families and society more broadly. Families deserve to heal from domestic violence, and men should be part of that equation.