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Lambda Legal to Appeal Aberrant District Court Ruling Dismissing Lawsuit Seeking Marriage for Same-Sex Couples in Puerto Rico
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Lambda Legal Plaintiffs Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro and Zulma Oliveras Vega
Last night, 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.
Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Lambda Legal Staff Attorney, said:
“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. 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. 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.
Meet the plaintiff couples and their children.
"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."
