Nevada continues to advance transgender equality, but Tennessee is considering a bill that would roll back municipalities’ ability to offer protections:

- MARYLAND: Following a violent anti-trans hate crime, Del. Joseline Pena-Melnyk (D) wrote to her colleagues that it was a “wake-up call” for the need for trans protections.

- NEVADA: The state Senate advanced two bills that would protect trangender Nevadans from discrimination in housing and public accommodations. A bill that would have made gender identity or expression a protected class under hate crime law failed to pass.

- NEW YORK: New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D) contributed this week to the momentum for marriage equality in the state, saying the state is “on the verge of what I believe is going to be an amazing, amazing victory.”

- TENNESSEE: Tennessee’s House has passed a bill that would nullify Nashville’s recently passed sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination protections. The Senate State and Local Government committee was set to discuss the bill this morning, but deferred action until next week. The “Don’t Say Gay” bill will be debated on the Senate floor on Thursday.

- TEXAS: The state Senate again may consider a bill that would ban transgender Texans from marrying the opposite gender, thereby making it legal for them to enter same-gender marriages. Meanwhile, Dallas County today passed gender identity protections from discrimination.

Keep track of how LGBT issues are advancing in the states at our State LGBT Watch.

Last week, the House GOP hired former Solicitor General Paul Clement and his law firm of King and Spalding to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act at the cost of $520 per hour. King and Spalding’s decision to take-up the case led many Americans and some King and Spalding clients to question the wisdom of defending an explicitly anti-gay law and the firm eventually dropped it. Clement responded by resigning and joining the firm of Bancroft PLLC, where he has promised to continue representing the House GOP.

The developments — which seem to signify that defending anti-gay laws is politically out-of-step in a society that has grown increasingly accepting of gay people — may not constitute major mainstream news, but CNN and MSNBC did cover the story within hours of King and Spalding announcing that they would drop the case. A ThinkProgress review of cable coverage revealed that MSNBC ran three separate segments, while CNN had just one. Fox News remained completely silent on the matter, failing to even mention the story in the network’s flagship news program Special Report:

Ignoring stories which undermine conservative causes, however, is the norm at Fox. Last year, Fox News remained silent when former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman — who had orchestrated President Bush’s gay-bashing 2004 re-election campaign — came out as gay and refused to run a single segment on Dr. Laura Schlessinger’s racially-charged rant, after which she resigned from talk radio.

Last night, Fox News’ Sean Hannity discussed a recent attack on a transgender woman at a Maryland McDonald’s who was brutally beaten by another woman for trying to use the women’s bathroom. Hannity used the beating to argue against hate crimes legislation:

HANNITY: I don’t care why they did it. They should get the full punishment, which should be severe for any conduct like that. Forget about what their thoughts at the time or what motivated them…Does it really matter—let’s say the beating is for whatever reason is one because this woman may or may not be transgender. It doesn’t matter. This is an act of violence against a human being. So what does it matter what their motivation is, their thought process is. They are guilty of the crime. We don’t need to start figuring out what is in their head.

HAYES: They are guilty of an assault, clearly. You have different kinds of assaultive behavior. So the question is—is this something that’s based on their gender, their race, their sexual orientation, whatever it is. [...]

HANNITY: I’m saying all acts of violence by definition are hateful. Punish people appropriately for the hideous crimes in both cases –

HAYES: That would be a misdemeanor in New York.

HANNITY: I wouldn’t call that – that’s no misdemeanor.

HAYES: This goes on in our schools —

Watch it:

Hate crimes laws go after violent crimes, not thoughts. In fact, the law Congress passed in 2009 specifically stipulates that “evidence of expression or associations of the defendant may not be introduced as substantive evidence at trial, unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense.”

That law — which added sexual orientation and gender identity to the protected groups to an existing 1968 hate crimes law — allowed local governments to receive needed resources from the federal government for investigations and prosecutions for bias-motivated crimes that don’t just target people for who they are, but seek to intimidate entire communities of people.

More than thirty states already have hate crime legislation that includes anti-gay crimes, but “attempts to protect transgender people have foundered in the Maryland legislature.” Earlier this month, the state legislature “rejected an anti-discrimination measure that would have prevented employers, creditors and housing providers from discriminating against transgender people.”

While King & Spalding did not specify reasons yesterday for dropping the DOMA defense aside from “inadequate vetting,” there was plenty that could have influenced the decision. K&S openly celebrates its LGBT employees, but Paul Clement’s contract with the House of Representatives did not include discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Further, the contract imposed a “gag rule,” meaning no K&S employee could have spoken out against the Defense of Marriage Act. It’s also likely that some of K&S’s clients, including Coca Cola, spoke out against the contract, and as Equality Matters’ Richard Socarides put it, “This kind of thing could have stuck to them for decades. People no longer want to be associated with this kind of discrimination.”

Regardless of the exact reasons, immediately following the decision and Clement’s resignation from the firm, conservatives and equality opponents quickly conspired to attack King & Spalding while celebrating Clement as a hero. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) launched the first blow, saying he was “disappointed in the firm’s…careless disregard for its responsibilities.” Chairman Dan Lungren (R-CA) issued an even harsher rebuke:

King and Spalding’s cut and run approach is inexcusable and an insult to the legal profession.  Less than one week after the contract was approved engaging the firm, they buckled under political pressure and bailed with little regard for their ethical and legal obligations. Fortunately, Clement does not share the same principles. I’m confident that with him at the helm, we will fight to ensure the courts – not the President – determine DOMA’s constitutionality.

Groups who advocate against marriage equality also joined the smear campaign. The National Organization for Marriage called the decision “appalling” and has promised an investigation into K&S’s “shocking lack of professional ethics.” Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council decried K&S as advocates for a “cabal that want to undermine policy and society” through “smear and silence tactics.” Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel and Liberty University School of Law called the decision “absolutely astounding” and “a politically bad move.” Even Clement’s new firm, Bancroft P.L.L.C., started a Twitter account yesterday just to celebrate Clement’s arrival and his “commitment to the interests of his clients.”

It seems clear that opponents of marriage equality have been vilifying King & Spalding to distract from the true narrative of the House’s DOMA Defense: Boehner is spending at least $500,000 of taxpayer money on a $5 million lawyer for the sole purpose of defending discrimination against gays and lesbians.