Press Release

(Salem, OR, March 15, 2018) – The Oregon Supreme Court today affirmed a determination by the Oregon Commission on Judicial Fitness and Disability that Judge Vance D. Day had violated state rules of judicial ethics when he devised a scheme to avoid marrying same-sex couples by instructing court staff to investigate the gender of marriage applicants and represent that he was unavailable if they were of the same sex, among other charges. The Court imposed a three-year suspension on Judge Day.

(Houston March 15, 2017) —Today Lambda Legal announced the resolution of a lawsuit against Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) on behalf of Passion Star, a black transgender woman who filed a lawsuit alleging prison officials failed to protect her from sexual and physical abuse while incarcerated in male prisons. 

(Salem, OR, March 16, 2018) – Lambda Legal today urged the Oregon Supreme Court to deny a petition from the former owners of an Oregon bakery seeking to overturn a lower court ruling that they violated Oregon’s anti-discrimination law in 2013 when they refused to sell a wedding cake to a lesbian couple because they claimed it was against their religion. The petition, filed by the anti-LGBT legal organization First Liberty Institute on behalf of the former owners of Gresham, Oregon-based Sweet Cakes by Melissa, comes as the U.S.

(St. Louis, March 14, 2018) – Today 47 businesses, attorneys general from 15 states and the District of Columbia, the nation’s leading LGBT rights organizations, and several other organizations submitted friend-of-the-court briefs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in support of Lambda Legal client Mark Horton, a gay man whose job offer from a St. Louis-based health management organization was withdrawn after the company’s owners learned Horton is gay.

(St. Louis, March 7, 2018) —Today, Lambda Legal and co-counsel Mathis, Marifian & Richter, LTD. filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on behalf of Mark Horton, a healthcare sales specialist whose job offer at St. Louis-based Midwest Geriatric Management (MGM) was withdrawn when the employer learned Horton is gay.

(Boise, ID, March 5, 2018) – A U.S. District Court judge late yesterday ordered Idaho state officials to allow transgender people born in Idaho to apply to correct the gender markers on their State of Idaho birth certificates by April 6, 2018. Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit last April challenging Idaho’s categorical ban on such corrections.

(Washington, DC, March 05, 2018) – Lambda Legal, Alliance for Justice, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the National Center for Transgender Equality, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and supporting groups will host a rally on Tuesday, March 6th at 11 a.m. by the steps of the Supreme Court to oppose the federal judicial nominations of Kyle Duncan and Thomas Farr, who are awaiting a vote from the full Senate. Congressman Kennedy and McEachin will join civil rights leaders opposing Mr. Duncan and Mr.

(New York, NY, February 26, 2018) —Today, in a 10-3 decision, the full Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin and religion. Today’s ruling comes in the case of the late Donald Zarda, a New York skydiving instructor who was fired from his job because he was gay.

(Honolulu, HI, February 23, 2018) – The Intermediate Court of Appeals of the State of Hawai`i today affirmed a lower court ruling against a Hawai`i bed and breakfast that denied a room to a lesbian couple because of their sexual orientation. Aloha Bed & Breakfast, whose owner says same-sex relationships “defile our land,” is represented by the anti-LGBT legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which has claimed a religious justification for the discrimination.

Lambda Legal today filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on behalf of a couple who were denied the opportunity even to apply to serve as foster parents for refugee children by a USCCB affiliate because, they were told, they did not “mirror the Holy Family.”