Press Release

(Dallas, TX, January 4, 2012) -- Tuesday night, the Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD) Board of Trustees voted 4-1 to add gender identity and expression to its nondiscrimination policies. Three policies were amended by the board. The first covers employees. Two others protect students.

Lambda Legal South Central Regional Director Roger Poindexter released the following statement:

Today, the Iowa District Court for Polk
County ordered the state's Department of Public Health to issue a birth
certificate for two year-old Mackenzie Gartner, a child born to a married
same-sex couple in 2009, listing both spouses as Mackenzie's parents in
reliance on their marriage and the spousal presumption of parentage it
creates.

Lambda Legal completed briefing in its appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of a 39-year-old man who applied to be a police officer with the Atlanta Police Department (APD), but was denied employment because of his HIV status.

(Little Rock, AR, December 28, 2011) – The Rev. Dr. Robert Franke, a retired university provost, Unitarian-Universalist minister and Lambda Legal client, died on Monday, December 26, at the age of 78. Dr. Franke was Lambda Legal’s client in the 2009 case Franke v. Parkstone Living Center, Inc., filed after Dr. Franke was evicted from Parkstone’s assisted living facility, Fox Ridge of North Little Rock, because he had HIV. The case was settled in September 2010.

(New York, December 27, 2011) -- Today, Lambda Legal and Equality Delaware released a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) guide for same-sex couples in Delaware who are considering getting a civil union.

(Chicago, IL, December 23, 2011) – Lambda Legal mourns the passing of John Geddes Lawrence, a co-defendant in Lawrence v. Texas, the monumental 2003 Lambda Legal case that overturned all remaining U.S. sodomy laws. Lawrence died on November 20th in Texas. In addition to criminalizing private consensual adult sexual activity, sodomy laws also served as the basis for denying LGBT people equality in other areas of life.

In comments submitted today to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Lambda Legal, the Gay & Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA), AIDS United and amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research say they are pleased that the CDC is updating guidelines for organ donation to include more current scientific information about HIV, but urge the agency to do more to maximize the supply of organs available for transplantation from medically qualified donors throughout our society, including gay men, bisexual men, and transgender people.

On Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling against Jennifer Keeton, a graduate student in counseling at Augusta State University. Ms. Keeton expressed intent to engage in discriminatory and harmful professional practices when working with LGBT students as a school counselor. Keeton claimed her first amendment rights were violated when the school required her to complete a remediation program to better understand LGBT issues.

Lambda Legal filed a discrimination lawsuit today in the First Circuit Court of Hawaii on behalf of a lesbian couple rejected by a commercial business establishment, Aloha Bed & Breakfast, because of the owner’s personal antigay beliefs.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California heard oral arguments today in the case brought by Lambda Legal and Morrison & Foerster challenging the constitutionality of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) on behalf of Karen Golinski, a federal court employee denied spousal health coverage for her wife.