5/27/2009

"...David Boies and Theodore B. Olson appeared on the same team on Wednesday as co-counsel in a federal lawsuit.

"...Their mutual goal: overturning Proposition 8, California's freshly affirmed ban on same-sex marriage. It is a fight that jolted many gay rights advocates.

"...[V]eterans of the legal battles over same-sex marriage questioned the suit's timing, particularly when a conservative majority holds sway in the Supreme Court.

5/18/2009

"When a loved one is in the hospital, you naturally want to be at the bedside. But what if the staff won't allow it?

"'I have this deep sense of failure for not being at Lisa's bedside when she died,' Ms. Langbehn said. 'How I get over that I don't know, or if I ever do.'

"The [Langbehn] case, now a subject of a federal lawsuit in Florida, is being watched by gay rights groups, which say same-sex partners often report being excluded from a patient's room because they aren't 'real' family members.

5/28/2009

"Gay-rights lawyers on Wednesday welcomed longtime conservative lawyer Theodore Olson into the fight for same-sex marriage, but warned him and liberal colleague David Boies that they could hurt the cause more than help it by launching an attack on California's Proposition 8 in the federal courts.

6/16/2009

"Don Atkins shared his life with Ted Horzella for 37 years...But when Horzella died in 2005 at the age of 76, Atkins was shocked to learn his annual property tax bill would rise from $1,400 to $10,400.

6/12/2009

"Gay rights groups expressed dismay with the Obama administration Friday over its championing of the Defense of Marriage Act, a law the president pledged to try to repeal while on the campaign trail.

"'The president made very explicit and emphatic campaign promises that he opposes DOMA and would provide leadership calling on Congress to repeal it,' said Jennifer Pizer, marriage project director for Lambda Legal. 'This brief is not consistent with that promise.'"

6/15/2009

"The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday threw out a judge's order that prohibited children in a divorce case from having any contact with their father's gay and lesbian friends.

"Beth Littrell, staff attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund in Atlanta, said the visitation order was the most sweeping of its kind she had seen in Georgia.

"'Placing a blanket ban on children's association with gay people not only hurts this father's relationship with his children, it is blatant discrimination,' Littrell said."

5/8/2009

"...Rumors surfaced this week that two highly qualified lesbians had made President Barack Obama's initial list to replace Justice David Souter.

"...Jon Davidson, legal director for the LGBT advocacy group Lambda Legal, is hopeful that Obama's views on gay marriage will eventually 'evolve' and that he will embrace the gay movement as a civil rights issue.

5/3/2009

"It's been more than two years since Lacey resident Lisa Pond died of a brain aneurysm in a Florida hospital, but her life partner, Janice Langbehn, cannot let go of the circumstances surrounding that day.

"Langbehn and Pond, who had been a couple for 18 years, were with three of their four children in Miami, getting ready for a cruise when Pond suddenly collapsed.

4/16/2009

"Anna Nicole Smith's lawyer?turned?lover Howard K. Stern is suing an author for $60 million for claiming in a book that he's gay. Lambda Legal doesn't like that, because there's 'nothing shameful about being identified as gay.'

"Anna Nicole Show costar Howard K. Stern is suing an author in Manhattan district court for claiming in a tell?all book that Stern is gay. Stern is demanding $60 million in damages, but if the efforts of legal activists are successful, he may not get a cent.

4/15/2009

"For most of the country, the unanimous decision this month by the Iowa Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage was an unexpected and seemingly random victory for a movement that has long drawn its deepest support from major cities in liberal coastal states.

"But for Camilla Taylor, a Chicago-based lawyer for the gay rights group Lambda Legal, it was the logical conclusion to a deliberate seven-year effort to make the Midwestern state one of the first in the country to allow same-sex marriage.