Marriage Relationships and Family Protections

Lambda Legal called on three courts to act immediately to strike down bans on marriage for same-sex couples in North Dakota, Louisiana and Puerto Rico in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic ruling declaring marriage bans across the country unconstitutional. Lambda Legal is litigating marriage cases in those jurisdictions which have been pending during the Supreme Court’s consideration.

On April 28, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in six cases from four states concerning marriage for same-sex couples. The Court asked counsel to address two questions in their presentation: Question 1: Must states allow same-sex couples to marry under the United States Constitution? Question 2: Must states recognize the legal marriages entered by same-sex couples in other jurisdictions? There are three possible outcomes.

Yesterday Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit on behalf Chelsea and Jessamy Torres, a married lesbian couple, seeking a birth certificate listing both mothers as parents of their son, born in March 2015.

Last week, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) issued a ruling that’s great news for same-sex couples (and all married couples) seeking to use assisted reproductive technology (ART) as part of their family planning. In Adoption of a Minor (brought by Patience Crozier of Kauffman Crozier LLP and supported by an Amicus brief developed by our friends and partners at GLAD in Boston and signed by Lambda Legal and a broad range of LGBT legal organizations, family law attorneys, and ART groups), the court unanimously clarified that a married same-sex couple are the sole legal parents of children born into their marriage using donated sperm and that they did not need to give notice to the donor before securing their parental rights through adoption.