As anticipation builds for the first federal appellate arguments on marriage equality since the Supreme Court’s decision last June striking down the Defense of Marriage Act’s anti-gay federal marriage definition, new developments in marriage equality litigation continue to pile up in various parts of the country.
On Thursday, April 10, a panel of three judges of the Denver-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit will hear the state of Utah’s appeal of last … <Read More>
In a gutsy move, U.S. District Judge Aleta A. Trauger has rejected a request by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam to stay her order requiring the state to recognize the out-of-state same-sex marriages of three Tennessee couples while Haslam appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Trauger issued a short opinion explaining why on March 20.
Trauger had issued her order in Tanco v. Haslam on March 14, finding that the plaintiffs … <Read More>
U.S. District Judge Orlando L. Garcia of the Western District of Texas, San Antonio, ruled on February 26 that Texas has shown no rational basis for depriving same-sex couples of the right to marry or for refusing to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. Adding yet another brick to the solid wall of federal trial court decisions that has been mounting since last summer, when a judge in Ohio ordered that state to recognize an out-of-state … <Read More>
Yesterday I conducted a faculty workshop at New York Law School on the current status of the struggle for marriage equality in the U.S. To prepare for the workshop and to provide a useful handout for the participants, I spent a few hours putting together a chronology of landmark developments, beginning with the Supreme Court’s statement in 1972 in Baker v. Nelson that a constitutional claim for same-sex marriage did not present a “substantial federal … <Read More>
A unanimous three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today in Smithkline Beecham Corp. v. Abbott Laboratories that a new trial has to be held because Abbott, the defendant in a civil suit involving claims about the pricing of HIV medications, used one of its “peremptory challenges” to exclude a gay man from the jury. The court found that excluding people from a jury because they are gay violates the … <Read More>
Yet another federal district judge has declared a state constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriages an unconstitutional infringement of rights under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. On January 14, Senior U.S. District Judge Terence C. Kern, who has been dealing with the case of Bishop v. United States since 2004, held that the constitutional amendment adopted by an overwhelming vote of Oklahoma citizens that year, fails to meeting the deferential “rationality review” test … <Read More>
Tomorrow I am leading a discussion at the NYLS Justice Action Center Colloquium on marriage equality and the law. I prepared the following selective chronology as a handout for the participants, and thought I would share it on-line.
MARRIAGE EQUALITY CHRONOLOGY
[Note: This chronology is selective]
Before 1993: All attempts to litigate for same-sex marriage ended in defeat, including summary affirmance by U.S. Supreme Court holding that the issue of same-sex marriage does … <Read More>
In a big day for the campaign for marriage equality, trial judges moved the ball forward significantly in New Jersey and Illinois on September 27. Mercer County (NJ) Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson granted a motion for summary judgment filed by Lambda Legal on behalf of Garden State Equality, a gay rights group, ruling that New Jersey must begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples beginning on October 21, 2013. Cook County (IL) Circuit … <Read More>
The lack of any big LGBT court decision over the past week or so, together with the beginning of the Jewish High Holy Days, explains why I haven’t posted anything on this blog since August. But things have definitely not been standing still in the ongoing marriage equality campaign.
The biggest deal has probably been the gradual rolling out of federal constitutional recognition for same-sex marriages in the wake of U.S. v. Windsor, the June … <Read More>