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Darrin Ellis and David Arriaga were in a committed relationship for more than five years, and in 2003 met with their attorney to draft estate planning documents and a declaration of domestic partnership.

When Ellis tried to dissolve their relationship three years later, Arriaga requested that the court dismiss the case, saying their relationship wasn't validly registered. The trial court agreed with Arriaga and dismissed the case. Ellis believed his domestic partnership was registered with the state, only to discover upon their separation that his partner never mailed the form.

Lambda Legal is arguing that individuals like Ellis with a good faith belief in the validity of their state registered domestic partnership should be protected and given access to family court during a separation the same way that spouses are protected under the "putative spouse doctrine." This rule protects spouses from being treated as legal strangers, giving them access to a predictable system in family court for making a fair division of their property.

Registered domestic partners are supposed to have "the same" rights as spouses under California's domestic partnership law, but Ellis's case illustrates that the relegation of same-sex couples to a lesser family protection system like domestic partnership is inadequate to protect same-sex couples. Only access to marriage can provide full equality.

There are approximately 33 million people living with HIV worldwide, and there were 2.5 million new infections in 2007. Access to life-saving medications is often not available to those most effected by the disease, and there is still no cure for HIV disease.

This World AIDS Day Lambda Legal called on all sectors of society — including private businesses, civil society organizations, individuals and governments — to become leaders in the fight against the AIDS epidemic. Help us fight the stigma and discrimination faced by people living with HIV around the world.

The United States continues to have one of the world's largest populations of people living with HIV and the epidemic continues to have an overwhelming impact on gay men, including a disproportionate impact on black gay men. Despite important advances in medical treatment for people living with HIV, not everyone — even in the United States — is able to obtain HIV medications and needed treatment. And people living with HIV, whether receiving medical care or not, continue to face stigma and discrimination in employment, health care, insurance, immigration, parenting and other areas of life.

Lambda Legal recently called on the leaders of our nation's LGBT organizations to join in placing an aggressive response to the HIV epidemic at the center of their agendas. The theme of this year's World AIDS Day, is "Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise — Leadership." Since the earliest years of the epidemic, Lambda Legal has taken a leading role in the courts and the court of public opinion on behalf of people with HIV. This World AIDS Day we affirm our commitment to provide leadership — not only in stopping the epidemic, but also in ending the stigmatization and discrimination against those living with HIV.

Lambda Legal has been working for four years with lead counsel National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), the ACLU of California, Heller Ehrman LLP and the Law Office of David C. Codell to make marriage legal for same-sex couples in California. On Tuesday, March 4, our voices will be heard in the highest court in California.

You can watch the arguments live on Tuesday from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon PT at www.calchannel.com or on the cable California Channel.

Read more information about the case, In re: marriage.

In a 65-35 vote Washington State's legislature passed a domestic partnership bill that will provide same-sex couples some of the rights that come with marriage. Lambda Legal provided technical assistance in the creation of this bill, which offers a domestic partnership registry with the state, hospital visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations and inheritance rights when there is no will. The passage of this bill comes nearly a year after the Washington State Supreme Court upheld a ban on marriage for same-sex couples in the case Andersen v. King County — a lawsuit seeking the right to marry for same-sex couples brought by Lambda Legal and the Northwest Women's Law Center. Though we ultimately did not prevail in court, our marriage case helped show the people of Washington the daily struggles same-sex couples face because they cannot marry and laid the groundwork for the passage of the state's domestic partnership bill.

Larry deGroen and Faun Patzer put their lives on the line for the people of Bellevue, Washington, each day they go to work as firefighters and paramedics. George Einsetler assists members of the public when they're at their most vulnerable as a lead "911" dispatcher for the city. Each has served the city for more than 10 years with distinction.  Each is in a committed relationship with a same-sex partner. Each is being denied valuable family benefits that are offered to their heterosexual married co-workers. Lambda Legal has filed a suit against the city of Bellevue seeking equal family benefits for its gay and lesbian public employees as a basic issue of fairness — equal pay for equal work.

A New York trial court judge has held that out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples in New York must be legally respected, just as out-of-state marriages of different-sex couples are respected. In October 2004, then Comptroller Alan Hevesi concluded that the New York State Retirement System must recognize Canadian marriages of same-sex couples. The current Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, has continued the policy. Last year the Alliance Defense Fund, an antigay group, brought this lawsuit, Godfrey v. DiNapoli, challenging the policy and claiming that it is illegal to respect out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples.

Lambda Legal intervened on behalf of two New York state employees, Peri Rainbow and Tamela Sloan, who were married in Canada. The couple have been together for seven years, and they have a daughter who they adopted out of foster care. They wanted to make sure they would continue to have the important protections they earned for their family under the New York State Retirement System and to defend the respect due their marriage in New York.

When the votes were tallied in Gainesville, Florida, supporters of the city's antidiscrimination ordinance posted a strong win — hailed locally and recognized throughout the nation. Fifty-eight percent of voters in the March 24 election voted "No" on proposed Charter Amendment 1, the ballot initiative that would have rolled back the city's inclusive law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression.

A group calling itself Citizens for Good Public Policy attacked the ordinance after the city commission extended Gainesville's housing, employment and public accommodations protections to cover gender identity. The proposed charter amendment sought to restrict Gainesville from providing antidiscrimination protections stronger than those included in Florida state law. (Florida does not currently protect LGBT people against discrimination; Gainesville's law extends those protections.)

In its attempts to whip up support for the amendment, the antigay Citizens for Good Public Policy aired commercials and distributed flyers with derogatory cartoons and baseless claims that protections for transgender people allow sexual predators access to women's bathrooms.

The ensuing campaign against the amendment, led by the local group Equality is Gainesville's Business, drew support not only from Lambda Legal but also from the local chamber of commerce, League of Women Voters, NAACP, local newspapers, and student organizations and leaders from the University of Florida, as well as LGBT-supportive organizations throughout the nation. Local victims' rights advocates, responding to the suggestion that antidiscrimination protections somehow endanger women and children, also voiced public opposition to the amendment.

Lambda Legal was called on by community members seeking legal expertise to fight the amendment. We have deep roots in the community: In 1996, Lambda Legal successfully overturned an Alachua County law banning protections for LGBT people.

In September 2008, as the campaign was gearing up, Lambda Legal submitted a ten-page legal analysis of Amendment 1's legal weaknesses to the Gainesville City Attorney.

Later in the fall, Gorenberg was the keynote speaker at Gainesville's annual Pride dinner, where she addressed an array of LGBT civil rights issues, including the fight against Amendment 1.

Finally, on the eve of the March 24 election, Lambda Legal's Community Education team organized a phone bank of volunteers who placed calls to get out the successful vote. Gorenberg was born and raised in Gainesville, and worked on the legal analysis aimed at defeating the amendment.

Heather Finstuen, Anne Magro and their daughters.

Exactly two weeks after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an extreme antigay Oklahoma law, the state’s Health Department announced that it would not seek further review and let the decision stand.

This is a significant victory for same-sex couples and their families. The law threatened to make children adopted by same-sex couples in other states legal orphans when the families are in Oklahoma. Now, when same-sex couples anywhere in the country have an adoption decree recognizing both of them as parents, they will know that their status as such must be honored no matter where they go.

Greg Hampel, Ed Swaya and their daughter.

Lambda Legal took on the case three years ago to overturn the law on behalf of three families, including Heather Finstuen and Anne Magro, then Oklahoma residents who now live in Houston, and Ed Swaya and Greg Hampel, of Seattle, to ensure that they could travel in Oklahoma without fear of losing their children. We argued that the law was unconstitutional based on the United States Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and due process, as well as the Full Faith and Credit Clause, which requires that court orders (including adoption decrees) from one state must be respected and enforced in another.

History

The Adoption Invalidation Law, hastily passed at the end of the 2004 Oklahoma legislative session, was the only one of its kind in the country. The law threatened the welfare of children and their parents because it prevented police, health officials, child welfare officials and others from recognizing the parent-child relationships of these families. It also did not provide any protection for the children once the state severed the ties between parent and child.

• September 2004 Lambda Legal files federal lawsuit to overturn Oklahoma's antigay "Adoption Invalidation Law," which nullifies legal adoptions of children by same-sex couples.
• May 2006 Lambda Legal wins case in federal district court.
• October 2006 After the case is appealed, Lambda Legal files court papers arguing that the U.S. Court of Appeals should affirm the lower court ruling.
• November 2006 Lambda Legal presents oral arguments before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
• August 2007 Victory! The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejects the Oklahoma Department of Health's challenge to a lower court decision effectively striking down the antigay Adoption Invalidation Law.

After 10 years of waiting— and with a scheduled trial less than two weeks away — Sergeant Mitchell Grobeson finally got a big part of what he has been fighting so long for: protection.

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to approve the non-monetary portion of a settlement for Grobeson, the LAPD's first openly gay officer. Grobeson had sued after the city had violated a previous settlement agreement and because he was suspended for "unauthorized recruiting" of lesbians and gay men to join the force, and for allegedly wearing his uniform without permission in a photo in a gay weekly and at gay pride and AIDS-awareness events. This important settlement provides a vast array of protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees and job applicants in Los Angeles; additionally it provides protections for people living with HIV. It also mandates recruitment from LGBT communities, and strengthens the city's antidiscrimination policies by writing them into the city's administrative code.

Although this is a major step forward for LGBT rights in the workplace, Grobeson's long legal battle is still not over. To date, he has not been reinstated in the LAPD or allowed to "retire honorably." His trial on these questions is scheduled for November 13, 2007.

History:

In 1993, Grobeson settled a sexual orientation employment discrimination lawsuit he'd filed against the city of Los Angeles after suffering harassment and discrimination when he was a sergeant. The settlement led to his reinstatement to the force, but he was later suspended for his "unauthorized recruiting" of lesbians and gay men to join the force, and for allegedly wearing his uniform without permission in a photo in a gay weekly and at gay pride and AIDS-awareness events. Grobeson soon filed a second lawsuit, charging the city and numerous police staff with violating the settlement agreement, as well as his federal and state constitutional and state statutory rights. Yesterday's settlement supersedes Grobeson's 1993 settlement, which required the city and the LAPD to halt discriminatory practices targeting gay and lesbian employees and applicants.

Timeline:

• June 1996 Lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of Grobeson against city of Los Angeles and numerous LAPD officers.
• June 1998 Disciplinary charges imposed against Grobeson are overturned by the Los Angeles Superior Court on the ground that the proceedings against him violated Grobeon's constitutional rights to due process.
• 1998 – 2007 Lengthy settlement negotiations and discovery proceed.
• November 2007 Los Angeles City Council votes unanimously to approve the non-monetary portion of Grobeson’s settlement. Grobeson has not been reinstated or allowed to retire honorably. Trial on monetary issues still scheduled for November 13, 2007.

Warding off persistent attacks from antigay groups, Lambda Legal has helped protect a medically accurate health curriculum that includes the facts on sexual orientation for 8th and 10th graders in Montgomery County, Maryland.

During the summer of 2007, the Montgomery County School Board voted to implement the curriculum for the upcoming school year. The lessons had been field tested in several schools and received the recommendation of the Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Development.

But opposing groups Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, and Family Leader Network challenged the curriculum at the local level. When they lost, they appealed the decision to implement it to the Maryland State Board of Education, which also ruled against them. The opposition groups then appealed that decision to the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, which last Friday upheld the school system’s position.

Lambda Legal represented Metro DC PFLAG in support of the Montgomery County schools’ curriculum.

Local co-counsel Jonathan Frankel, a partner in the firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, helped on the case. As a lawyer he was pleased with the outcome of the case. “But as a parent in Montgomery County,” he says, “I am even happier that our local school board can follow through on its strong commitment to treat all students with respect and build a culture of tolerance.”