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Key victories in the long march toward full marriage-equality rights in New York State were defended again on October 13 when Lambda Legal presented oral arguments before the high court in New York on behalf of two married same-sex couples.

At stake were decisions made by state officials and lower courts to recognize the out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples. In June 2006, Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano announced that marriages of same-sex couples would be recognized by county government agencies. And in May 2007, the New York Department of Civil Service (NYDCS) announced it would provide health coverage to same-sex spouses of public employees, provided they were married in a state or country in which such marriages were legal. With over one million enrollees, the NYDCS’s public health insurance program is the largest in the nation, second only to that of the federal government.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a national antigay legal group, acted swiftly and repeatedly — and unsuccessfully — to challenge these decisions. In separate cases, the ADF sued both NYDCS and Spano. In the case of Godfrey v. Spano, Lambda Legal asked for permission to intervene on behalf of Michael Sabatino and Robert Voorheis, a couple married in Canada. Lambda Legal also intervened in Lewis v. New York State Department of Civil Service on behalf of Peri Rainbow and Tamela Sloan, married public employees who are raising a special-needs child adopted in foster care. “We just want to be able to continue using the health insurance that provides important medical benefits for our family,” says Rainbow.

In both cases, Lambda Legal and the government defendants repeatedly defeated the ADF. In March 2007, a trial court in Westchester County dismissed the complaint against Spano, ruling that his order complied with state law. A year later, an Albany County court declared NYDCS’s health-coverage decision to be in compliance with state law.

The ADF appealed both decisions and lost. In December 2008, the New York Appellate Division ruled that the organization had no case against Spano. The next month, the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division upheld Albany’s earlier ruling in NYDCS’s favor.

Undeterred, ADF petitioned the New York Court of Appeals, which accepted both Godfrey and Lewis for review in March 2009 and heard oral arguments on October 13. Susan Sommer, Lambda Legal’s Director of Constitutional Litigation, argued on behalf of our clients, emphasizing once again that marriage recognition is long-standing law in New York and that marriages of same-sex couples should not be treated differently than other marriages.

Though New York Governor David Paterson has been a vocal proponent of marriage equality, New York still does not allow same-sex couples to legally marry within its borders. To achieve this, New York’s Senate must follow the lead of the Assembly and approve a bill for Paterson to sign.

Until then, marriage advocates see recognition of out-of-state marriages as clearly required by law — and an important milestone. “We hope the court will reaffirm that our relationship can be honored in the community where we live and where we make our life together as a married couple,” says Sabatino.

The cases are Godfrey v. Spano and Lewis v. New York State Department of Civil Service, et al.

After eight years of intensive litigation, Lambda Legal client Guadalupe 'Lupita' Benitez reached a mutually satisfactory settlement for an undisclosed sum of money with the doctors she had sued for sexual orientation discrimination. Lambda Legal Senior Counsel Jennifer C. Pizer says, "Thanks to this settlement, [Lupita and Joanne's three kids] all can afford to pursue whatever education and opportunities they choose."

A three-member panel of federal judges heard from attorneys regarding our lawsuit against the Louisiana Registrar of Vital Statistics for refusing to respect the New York adoption by a same-sex couple of a Louisiana-born baby boy. Ken Upton, the Lambda Legal attorney who argued the case, says, "Decades ago, our U.S. Supreme Court rejected as unconstitutional the premise that a state may inflict harm on children solely as a way to express disapproval of their parents. Ironically, one of the earliest of these cases was against the State of Louisiana. The Registrar's policy appears to be a throwback to that long discredited conduct."

District of Columbia City Council member David Catania introduced a bill on October 6 that would give same-sex couples the right to marry in the district.

The move builds quickly on the milestone achieved in April, when council members voted unanimously to recognize same-sex couples' marriages performed outside the capital. Progress in D.C. also reflects the momentum for marriage equality around the country following Lambda Legal’s historic legal victory in Iowa in April and recent legislative victories in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

With ten sponsors among D.C.’s 13 council members, Catania's bill, the "Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009," is highly anticipated to pass, and Mayor Adrian Fenty is expected to approve it. "Everyone is entitled to the same rights," Fenty told DC's News Channel 8 in April.

It is likely to be a couple of months before the city council gives the bill final approval and the mayor signs it. After that, because the district is not a state, Congress will have 30 session days, about two calendar months, to review the decision.

Although some members of Congress say they want to block D.C.’s marriage equality bill, “the bar is high,” says Susan Mottet, committee counsel for Catania. Within a very short time frame, the House and the Senate would have to pass a joint resolution rejecting the bill, and get the president’s signature. If President Obama were to veto such a resolution, they would have to muster enough votes to override him, something deemed unlikely by Congress watchers.

''Although opposition by some in the House already has been announced, I believe Congress will and should defeat opposition to gay marriage rights in the District of Columbia," says Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is the district's (non-voting) representative in Congress.

Norton’s prediction reflects a friendlier climate for lesbian and gay equality in the capital, the fact that Congress allowed D.C.’s marriage-recognition bill to stand this past June and that in the past 25 years, Congress has rejected only three bills approved by the district.

A Florida court has rejected Lambda Legal's lawsuit filed against Jackson Memorial Hospital in 2008 on behalf of Janice Langbehn, the Estate of Lisa Pond and their three adopted children.

In February 2007, the family was tragically kept apart by hospital staff for eight hours as Pond slipped into a coma and died. Surviving partner Janice Langbehn was told that she was in an antigay city and state and that she could expect to receive no information or acknowledgment as family.

Staff Attorney Beth Littrell says, "The court's decision paints a tragically stark picture for how vulnerable same-sex couples and their families are during times of crisis."

Lambda Legal has until October 16 to review the ruling with the family and consider all legal options.

Lambda Legal seeks to intervene in a case on behalf of Fair Wisconsin, the LGBT pro-equality group that championed new domestic partnership protections enacted in the state earlier this year.

In June, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle signed domestic partnerships into law, granting limited but vital legal protections to same-sex couples. The new law provides important health care protections, including hospital visitation and the ability to take family medical leave to care for a partner.

In retaliation, the antigay group Wisconsin Family Action filed suit against the state in Appling v. Doyle, claiming that the new law violates a previous antigay amendment that blocked marriage equality there and barred recognition of any legal status "substantially similar" to marriage. Lambda Legal disagrees, arguing that the marriage amendment was never intended to prevent the legislature from providing basic domestic partnership protections.

Lambda Legal Senior Staff Attorney Christopher Clark says, "There are almost 15,000 same-sex couples and their families living in Wisconsin who need the basic protections provided by domestic partnerships. The law is far from marriage equality, but it helps couples in times of illness and crisis."

Despite Wisconsin's history of equality — it was the first state in the union to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace in
1982 — many members of the gay community are concerned that this attack could mean a step back for fairness.

David Kopitze, who has been with his partner, Paul Klawiter, for nearly 40 years, worries about what losing basic protections might mean for their family. "The domestic partnership registry provides fundamental protections that we need to take care of each other, that married couples in Wisconsin can assume they will always have," he says.

View the legal briefs:

• Fair Wisconsin, Inc's Brief in Support of Its Motion to Intervene
• Opposition to the Petition to Take Jurisdiction of Original Action

On Wednesday, September 23, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) was heard before a U.S. House of Representatives committee in Washington, D.C. Rep. Barney Frank introduced the bill, H.R. 3017, in June. Lambda Legal client Vandy Beth Glenn, who was fired from her job because she is transgender, testified as to why the federal government must act to end workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Glenn's testimony comes in the midst of a federal lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal against Georgia legislative officials on her behalf after she was wrongfully terminated from her job as legislative editor.

Lambda Legal sent a letter to the leadership of the House committee explaining its support for ENDA.

The House Education and Labor Committee hearing is an important step toward eliminating harmful treatment of LGBT workers all over the country. Lambda Legal Executive Director Kevin Cathcart says, "Despite the fact that the majority of Americans favor equal rights for lesbians and gay men with regard to job opportunities, less than half of all states specifically ban workplace discrimination in the private sector based on sexual orientation and even fewer states expressly ban discrimination based on gender identity." In June, Cathcart called for swift passage of an inclusive version of ENDA, stating it "would ensure that in most workplaces a person's qualifications and job performance, rather than sexual orientation or gender identity, will be the factors that determine success on the job."

Lambda Legal plaintiff Vandy Beth Glenn in Washington, D.C.

Glenn's firing violated the Constitution's equal protection guarantee because it treated her differently due to her non-conformity with gender stereotypes. In addition, General Assembly officials disregarded Glenn's gender identity disorder and her needed treatment — also an equal protection violation. The government's motion to dismiss was recently denied.

"My editorial skills had not changed," says Glenn. "My work ethic had not changed — I was still ready and willing to burn the midnight oil with my colleagues, making sure that every bill was letter-perfect. My commitment to the General Assembly, to its leaders, and to [Sewell] Brumby had not faltered. The only thing that changed was my gender."

For more about Lambda Legal's landmark federal case, visit Glenn v. Brumby.

On September 15, Lambda Legal Executive Director Kevin Cathcart and married Iowa plaintiffs Jen and Dawn BarbouRoske called for the passage of a new bill introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives that would repeal the so-called "Defense of Marriage Act" (DOMA). "We applaud the bill's sponsors for their leadership and call on all fair-minded congressional members to support this bill," says Cathcart.

The Respect for Marriage Act (RMA) — introduced by Representative Jerrold Nadler, together with Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis, and 88 other Members of Congress — would return the country to the longstanding earlier rule that states decide who can marry and that the federal government respects all married couples without discrimination.

At a Capitol Hill press conference announcing the bill's introduction, Cathcart stood with the BarbouRoske family, plaintiffs in our Iowa Supreme Court marriage victory of earlier this year. The couple, together for nearly 20 years when they were married this summer, spoke about why federal respect of their marriage is important to them. "When Dawn and I do our federal tax return next year, our own government will tell us to lie and say we're not married," says Jen BarbouRoske. "But we are, and the government that takes the same taxes and Social Security deductions from our paychecks as from everyone else's, should give us the same legal rights, too."

Representative Jarrold Nadler (far left), Iowa plaintiffs Jen and Dawn (far right) BarbouRoske with their daughters Breanna and McKinley, and Lambda Legal Executive Director Kevin Cathcart

Lambda Legal's Marriage Project Director, Jennifer C. Pizer, worked closely for months with Congressman Nadler's staff and colleagues from our sister LGBT organizations to craft the bill, and has authored a fact sheet to explain more about the bill and what it means for same-sex couples all over the country. From the fact sheet:

Any important bill requires lots of public education and organizing of support before Congress will pass it on to the President's desk. Support for the Respect for Marriage Act will grow, and eventually will snowball, as we all take responsibility for explaining to people in our lives why this federal discrimination must end.

"Passage of this law in 1996 was a gratuitous slap in the face," Cathcart says. "Now, it is all the more harmful because there are thousands of married same-sex couples in this country who endure irrational, sometimes devastating discrimination at the hands of their own government. These couples have shouldered full legal responsibility for each other, they pay full federal taxes just like everyone else, and they should receive the same respect, important benefits and protections as everyone else."

On September 4, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a budget bill that included a provision eliminating health insurance coverage for state employees’ domestic partners — just one year after an equal benefits plan was approved by former Governor Janet Napolitano, now Department of Homeland Security Secretary.

The new law eliminates vital benefits for a small, politically vulnerable group of public workers; under the new law, gay and lesbian state employees will be barred from obtaining health benefits for an unmarried life partner.

Family and financial stability of committed life partners is threatened, and Lambda Legal believes the new budget represents a breach in the ‘equal pay for equal work’ ethic, and inflicts severe hardship on a targeted group of Arizona families.

Lambda Legal is encouraging lesbian and gay Arizona state employees who may be affected by the new discriminatory law to contact Staff Attorney Tara Borelli.

On September 1, a settlement agreement was reached in the lawsuit after a federal judge ruled against The City of Birmingham and its mayor in their efforts to have the case dismissed. The city must now pay legal costs and attorneys’ fees in excess of $40,000. The city will also establish non-discriminatory regulations for the approval of the hanging of banners on city property by city employees to announce public events. “Discrimination against members of the gay community will not be tolerated in this city where historic progress has been made for civil rights,” says Lambda Legal Staff Attorney Beth Littrell.