Media Center

(New York, Wednesday, February 11, 2004) - In cities and towns nationwide, Lambda Legal and dozens of local groups will hold celebrations, community meetings, workshops and other events to mark National Freedom To Marry Week.

For the last six years, local groups in communities across the country have joined Lambda Legal in celebrating National Freedom To Marry Week - leading up to Valentine’s Day -- to build public support for the right of same-sex couples to marry.

(New York, February 4, 2004) - Lambda Legal issued the following statement today, as the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court clarified its ruling late last year that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates the Massachusetts Constitution’s guarantee that all citizens be treated equally under the law. (Lambda Legal, along with other civil rights groups, filed friend-of-the-court briefs with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court; New England-based Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders represented the seven couples in the case.)

(Los Angeles, January 30, 2004) - The federal government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which for months has been investigating Cirque du Soleil for firing performer Matthew Cusick because he has HIV, concluded that Cirque likely engaged in illegal discrimination. The EEOC’s Los Angeles District Office handled the investigation and issued the determination made public today, and will now attempt to resolve the matter before it reaches court, according to Lambda Legal, which represents Cusick.

(New York, Tuesday, January 20, 2004) - In the first case in the nation that appropriately recognized a couple who entered into a Vermont civil union as spouses outside that state, Lambda Legal today asked an appeals court to uphold an earlier ruling that a gay man in New York is a legal spouse and able to sue St. Vincent’s Hospital for medical negligence leading to his longtime partner’s death.