A proposed amendment to the New York Constitution to expand anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people and pregnant women will go before voters in November, the state’s highest court ruled Thursday.
The New York Court of Appeals decision confirms a June ruling that allowed the amendment to go to voters for ratification, after an upstate New York judge took it off the ballot in May. The justices on Thursday rejected an appeal from Marjorie Byrnes (R), a Republican member of the state Assembly, “on the grounds that no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.”
Byrnes did not immediately return a request for comment. In a statement, New York Republican Party Chairman Ed Cox said the court was wrong to reject the appeal and called the proposed change, which will appear on the November ballot as Proposition 1, “a radical departure from common sense.”
“I am confident that voters — if they are told the truth — will resoundingly reject Proposition 1,” Cox said.
Cox, in his statement, said the change would grant noncitizens the right to vote in elections and allow minors access to gender-affirming medical care — including surgeries, which are rarely recommended for transgender youth under the age of 18. – without parental consent. New York Republicans used similar scare tactics to sway voters against the amendment, which Democrats hope to use as a way to protect abortion rights in the state.
Although the ballot question would not explicitly protect abortion rights in New York, where the procedure has been legal since 1970 and is not seen as endangered, it would prevent a person from being discriminated against for having an abortion. In New York, individuals are already protected from employment discrimination based on reproductive health care decisions, including abortion.
The New York Constitution currently prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed and religion. The proposed amendment, known by its supporters as the “Equal Rights Amendment,” would explicitly prohibit discrimination based on “a person’s ethnicity, national origin, age, disability and sex – including their sexual orientation, gender identity, expression gender, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, reproductive health care and autonomy.”
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