Attorney Michelle May O'Neil is the senior shareholder of the O'Neil Wysocki Family Law firm. She's also one of the attorneys representing Steven Crowder in his ongoing divorce case against his soon-to-be-ex Hilary. She appeared in the Denton County Courthouse last week to discuss motions regarding property usage, a recent leak of documents and deposition footage on Twitter, and a gag order issued by 16th District Judge Sherry Shipman.
O'Neil is a curious choice for Crowder, given that she's a "staunch supporter of gay and lesbian rights since the beginning of her career," according to her law firm's website. O'Neil has been practicing family, appellate and civil law in Texas since 1992, according to the State Bar of Texas. The Texas Board of Legal Specialization made her a family law specialist in 1997, and she has dedicated a good portion of her practice to helping LGBTQ couples with child-custody cases in Texas, a state not known for being friendly to same-sex couples, especially when it comes to children. The firm even had a webpage dedicated to this side of the practice at LGBTtexasfamilylaw.com, but the page came down earlier this week and now points to another firm that practices family law with a specialty in LGBTQ+ cases.
One of O'Neil's most influential cases landed in 2009, in which she won the first Texas appellate case giving unmarried, gay or lesbian and nonbiological mothers legal standing to sue for child custody, according to the website SuperLawyers.com, which named her an attorney who is "on the cutting edge of LGBTQ+ family law."
Her firm's website even shows appearances O'Neil made on FOX 4 and WFAA discussing same-sex marriage following news that the first legal same-sex marriage in Texas took place in Austin follow the Supreme Court's ruling on
Obergefell v Hodges in 2015, which overturned all statewide bans on same-sex marriages in America.
So it appears strange to some that an attorney who has championed and fought for the rights of LGBTQ+ families in Texas would take the divorce case of Steven Crowder, who has delivered homophobic rants and comments against gay rights, including same-sex marriage.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, Crowder and his crew celebrated the decision with party horns, Champagne poppers and party hats and said he hoped the court would further its reach to gay marriage. He added he believes "the states should have the right to regulate same-sex marriage" because "states have different divorce laws."
"They can determine what qualifies for a marriage in many other facets," Crowder said on June 24. "They can say well you can't marry someone. Why? Because you're already married so you can't marry a second one. OK, that's fine. They can say, well, you can't take half. Why? Because you cheated, so you don't get to divide half at this point. OK, but then another state says I don't care that she cheated, she can take half or you can take half if she's the primary earner. If they can do that, why can't they say, well you can't get married. Why? Oh, because you both have dicks."
In 2019, Crowder called Vox host Carlos Maza a "lispy queer," "little queer" and "the gay Vox sprite" on his YouTube channel. A backlash ensued that only amplified when YouTube initially refused to take down the videos in which he used the homophobic slurs against Maza but later demonetized the conservative host's channel for more than a year.
Crowder even seems to be against no-fault divorce for gay and straight couples. He implied as much in his April video announcing his divorce.
“My then-wife decided that she didn’t want to be married anymore and in the state of Texas," Steven said, "that is completely permitted.”
He also said in the June 24 video that no-fault divorce and other family laws should be changed. “No-fault divorce, which, by the way, means that in many of these states if a woman cheats on you, she leaves, she takes half. So it’s not no-fault, it’s the fault of the man. ...There need to be changes to marital laws, and I’m not even talking about same-sex marriage," Crowder said.
More recently, he took sides with an anti-trans internet host and filmmaker from The Daily Wire, the right-wing website with whom he had a very public falling out over a $50 million contract that he called a "slave contract" on his show. Crowder stated on Twitter "I stand with The Daily Wire and Matt Walsh," who produced a transphobic 2022 documentary called What Is a Woman?, a post that also happened to occur on the first day of Pride Month.
O'Neil could not comment since she's under a court order forbidding her or anyone involved in the Crowders' divorce case to speak publicly about the proceedings. We also reached out to a representative of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) of Dallas, but they declined to comment on the matter.
