BOSTON – An order of Catholic nuns that has balked at complying with a federal mandate forcing it to buy insurance that covers medical services and drugs that go against the contraception and abortion got some support from a University of Massachusetts Law School professor, who has weighed in before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the people they serve.
"For almost 150 years," Dwight Duncan, a professor of constitutional law and NewBostonPost blogger, says in his friend-of-the-court brief, "the Little Sisters of the Poor in the United States have provided an incomparable loving environment for elderly poor people, many of whom have nowhere else to go. "
BOSTON – Gov. Charlie Baker and some lawmakers are refusing to budge on a bill that would give transgender people access to public restrooms and locker rooms based on their sexual identity rather than their physical gender, despite increased pressure from activists.
Nicknamed by conservatives as the "bathroom bill," the measure would expand a 2011 law aimed at preventing discrimination against transgender people by extending that protection to cover access to public accommodations. Baker has been noncommittal about the bill, which opponents have said could expose children and women to sexual predators and invade their privacy.
