The news from the U.S. Supreme Court in the
Perry &
Windsor cases delivered a significant, if not complete, victory for our community today. The Defense of Marriage Act was struck down and, given the dismissal on standing grounds in the
Perry case, marriage equality seems poised to return to California.
For the thousands of legally married same-sex couples in this country, and future married couples, the Windsor ruling (pending a host of administrative interpretations and actions) would seem to ensure full federal recognition of such marriages and the provision of the thousands of federal rights associated with recognition. In other words, this is truly a great victory.
We congratulate our friends Roberta Kaplan of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, James Esseks of the ACLU's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project and the entire legal team representing a hero of our community, Edith Windsor. And we salute the tremendous work of Mary L. Bonauto of the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, who, among many other achievements, brought the challenge to DOMA in the 1st Circuit.
On the Proposition 8 case, we are of course pleased that marriage equality, despite anticipated battles over the application of the Court's decision, will likely once again be the law for all Californians. But by failing to decide that the U.S. Constitution requires marriage equality, the Court ensured that the fight for our rights, state-by-state, will continue. Not only will that deny the right to marry to couples living in non-marriage equality states, but it will also continue to send the implicit message that our basic equality is somehow a matter for public debate.
Our organization and its members, many of whom have played an outsized role in the progress of our movement already, will continue our work in support of the goal of full marriage equality. We were proud to join as an amicus party with a diverse array of civil rights, legal advocacy organizations and bar associations in both these proceedings in the U.S. Supreme Court.
On July 22, we will also continue a conversation that is already being started about the meaning of these rulings for our community and our country with a special event being held at Proskauer Rose LLP, "After Perry & Windsor," featuring Professor William Eskridge, Jr., Linda Greenhouse and Evan Wolfson.
And beyond the ongoing marriage fight, we know that a host of additional challenges confronting our community need our attention: the fight to secure nationwide protections from employment discrimination; the alarming statistics concerning HIV transmission rates in the LGBT community; the failure of the New York State legislature to enact the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act; the recent wave of hate crimes directed at the LGBT community; and many more challenges too numerous to mention here.
Despite all of these challenges, there is obviously much to celebrate.
On that front, we do also hope to see many of you at our Pride event being held this Friday night.
Happy Pride,
