Lambda Legal to Appeal Aberrant District Court Ruling Dismissing Lawsuit Seeking Marriage for Same-Sex Couples in Puerto Rico

“The court’s ruling is at odds with the recent decisions finding marriage bans unconstitutional and perpetuates the discrimination and harm done to same-sex Puerto Rican couples and their families.”

(San Juan, PR) — Today the United States District Court of Puerto Rico issued a ruling dismissing Lambda Legal’s lawsuit seeking to end the discriminatory ban on marriage for same-sex couples in Puerto Rico. The case, Conde-Vidal v. Garcia-Padilla, was filed on behalf of five gay and lesbian couples and Puerto Rico Para Tod@s, an organization that represents lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and transgender people and their families.

“The court’s ruling is at odds with the recent decisions finding marriage bans unconstitutional and perpetuates the discrimination and harm done to same-sex Puerto Rican couples and their families,” said Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Staff Attorney for Lambda Legal. “It defies the unmistakable import of the Windsor decision and flies in the face of the blizzard of rulings of the last year, the reasoned rulings of the Courts of Appeals for the 4th, 7th, 9th and 10th Circuits, and the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to let stand the rulings striking down five bans similar to Puerto Rico’s. One struggles to understand how this judge came to a different conclusion.”

“We will, of course, appeal this ruling to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals,” Gonzalez-Pagan said. “All families in Puerto Rico need the protections of marriage.”

On March 25th, 2014, Ada Mercedes Conde Vidal and Ivonne Álvarez Vélez filed a lawsuit to compel Puerto Rico to recognize their marriage, which they entered into in Massachusetts. In June, Lambda Legal joined and amended that lawsuit to include four more plaintiff couples, two seeking recognition of marriages entered into in other jurisdictions and two who seek to marry in Puerto Rico, as well as an organizational plaintiff, Puerto Rico Para Tod@s.

"It is outrageous that loving committed LGBT couples and their families have been deprived of their civil rights and dignity,” said Pedro Julio Serrano, founder and president of Puerto Rico Para Tod@s. “We are hopeful that justice will prevail and that the equality promised by the Constitution will be upheld."

In addition to Ms. Conde Vidal (53) and Ms. Álvarez Vélez (67) of San Juan, who have been together for 14 years, were married in Massachusetts in 2004 and have one daughter, the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Iris Delia Rivera Rivera (56) – a former member of the National Guard deployed in the first Gulf War – and Maritza López Avilés (58) of Toa Alta, together for 38 years and parents of one daughter; José A. Torruellas Iglesias (57) and Thomas J. Robinson (56) of San Juan, together for 13 years and married in Toronto in 2007; Zulma Oliveras Vega (43) and Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro (43) of Carolina, together for six years and parents of one daughter; and Johanne Vélez García (49) and Faviola Meléndez Rodríguez (37) of Guaynabo, together for six years and married in New York in 2012. The organizational plaintiff, Puerto Rico Para Tod@s, is a leading advocate for LGBT people and their families in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, with members throughout the Commonwealth.

Lambda Legal attorneys Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Hayley Gorenberg, and Jael Humphrey are handling the case, joined by co-counsel Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, local counsel Celina Romany-Siaca of the Law Offices of Celina Romany, and Ada Conde Vidal representing herself and her wife.

Read about the case here: http://www.lambdalegal.org/in-court/cases/conde-v-rius-armendariz

Read more about our plaintiff couples and their children here: http://www.lambdalegal.org/blog/20140625_puerto-rico-meet-the-families