1/10/2011

"The Texas attorney general can't block a divorce granted to two women who were legally married elsewhere, an appeals court ruled Friday.

"...Unlike the Dallas case, the Austin case did not examine whether the judge had jurisdiction to grant the divorce. Ken Upton, a staff attorney for Lambda Legal, a national legal organization that promotes equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, noted the Austin appeals court decision was in fact quite narrow.

Lambda Legal and Just New Mexico are praising an opinion letter issued yesterday by New Mexico Attorney General Gary King finding that marriages between people of the same sex performed in states or countries where they are legal likely are valid in New Mexico as well.

Today a panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in the case Perry v. Schwarzenegger, certified to the California Supreme Court the question of whether California law either gives proponents of initiatives an interest in seeing that law enforced, or authorizes proponents to act in the place of the government to defend their initiative. Jennifer C. Pizer, National Marriage Project Director for Lambda Legal, issued the following statement

Lambda Legal has sent a letter to Governor-Elect Jerry Brown urging him to scrutinize closely the judicial philosophies of those he appoints as state court judges and to add greater diversity to the bench.

12/28/2010

"The North Carolina Supreme Court on December 20 voided the adoption by a lesbian mother of the child who she and her former partner, the biological mother, were raising together. The ruling jeopardizes the legality of all other such 'second-parent adoptions' in the state.

Greg Nevins, Supervising Senior Staff Attorney at Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, agreed the status of the other adoptions remains unclear at this point, but 'at a minimum, [the ruling] is causing a lot of anxiety.'"

Lambda Legal and the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin (ARCW) announced that the discrimination lawsuit they brought on behalf of Melody Rose, a woman living with HIV who was denied gallbladder surgery, has been resolved.

December 18 was an historic day: The Senate finally followed the House to repeal the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law. On this vote, Congress lived up to the values that lesbian, gay and bisexual servicemembers swore to defend.

In response to today’s Senate vote that sets the stage for an end to the U.S. military’s 17-year-old “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy barring gays and lesbians from serving openly, Lambda Legal issued the following statement from Executive Director Kevin Cathcart.

(Atlanta, Georgia December 16, 2010) - Plaintiff's lawyers and public safety organization will hold a town hall meeting on Monday, December 20, 2010, to educate Atlanta community members about the recent settlement in the Atlanta Eagle raid case and what the systemic reforms within the Atlanta Police Department means for the community.

(San Francisco, December 14, 2010) - The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California will hear oral arguments this Friday, December 17, in a Lambda Legal case that could result in the next major court decision regarding the federal so-called "Defense of Marriage Act," or DOMA.