In the News

"After criticism from the United Nations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it is "taking action to investigate" reports that 16 gay and transgender detainees have been tortured in U.S. immigration prisons...

"Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, a staff attorney for Lambda Legal, told Courthouse News in an interview that the abuses are more distressing because the detainees are being held for alleged civil, not criminal, violations...

"A federal judge denied a motion from Tarrant County College to dismiss a discrimination lawsuit filed by a former adjunct professor who alleges that administrators prevented her from interviewing for a full-time teaching position because they believed she was a lesbian...

"Kenneth Upton, chief supervising attorney for Lambda Legal's south central office in Dallas, who is representing Gill, said this week's ruling is significant because the court did not grant the college 'qualified immunity from being sued...

"Lambda Legal took a case that needed to go to the Supreme Court: the continued acceptance of criminal anti-sodomy laws under Bowers v. Hardwick gave legitimacy to every piece of anti-gay legislation and every instance of anti-gay discrimination. It needed to go. And, Lambda attorneys crafted the best legal strategy to win: they chose the right lawyer, they told the right story, and argued the right cases to appeal to swing Justices. And, this is what every lawyer does if he wants to win.

Cross-posted on The Huffington Post

"The government cannot deny health benefits to the wife of a lesbian court employee by relying on the 1996 law that bars government recognition of same-sex unions, a federal judge has ruled.

"In Wednesday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said the government’s refusal to furnish health insurance to Karen Golinski’s wife is unjustified because the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutionally discriminates against same-sex married couples.

"Although we still have a long way to go, it would be hard not to draw the conclusion that February 2012 is the month that the walls came tumbling down and the march toward marriage equality in this country became unstoppable."

Read the entire blog entry at huffingtonpost.com

"A judge on Wednesday declared the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and ordered the federal government to ignore the statute and provide health benefits to the wife of a lesbian federal court employee.

"'This ruling, the first to come after the Justice Department announced it would no longer defend this discriminatory statute in court, spells doom for DOMA,' said Tara Borelli, a staff attorney for the national gay rights advocacy group Lambda Legal."

Charles M. Spiegel, an attorney and a member of Lambda Legal’s National Leadership Council, tells the Bay Area Reporter:

This analysis by Legal Director Jon W. Davidson was cross-posted in the Huffington Post.

"The advocacy law firm responsible for Iowa’s landmark same-sex marriage case and a lawsuit demanding that married lesbians both be named on their child’s birth certificate filed new court papers this morning challenging the removal of a parent’s name from the death certificate of a stillborn child.