The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed a decision by the Alabama Supreme Court and ordered that Alabama courts accord “full faith and credit” to a lesbian co-parent adoption that was approved by a Georgia trial court. The March 7 decision in V.L. v. E.L., No. 15-648, was reached without any oral argument before the high court, and the opinion was issued “per curiam” without any dissent from the Court’s conservative members.
The Alabama Supreme Court’s … <Read More>
With the death of Antonin Scalia the Supreme Court has lost its most outspoken anti-gay member. Ever since taking his seat on the high bench in 1986, Justice Scalia voted consistently against gay rights claims, sometimes in the majority and sometimes in dissent, regardless of the factual context in which they arose.
Scalia was appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan shortly after the Court had decided Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), the notorious case … <Read More>
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has rejected an attempt by a former federal government employee to win compensation from the government for its refusal to add his same-sex spouse to his insurance plan from 2004 until 2013. Horvath v. Dodaro, 2015 WL 7566665 (D.D.C., Nov. 24, 2015).
Edward Horvath married Richard Neidich in Massachusetts on June 23, 2004, shortly after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s decision in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, … <Read More>
The Oklahoma Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that a woman who spent ten years raising a child with her former same-sex partner can use the equitable doctrine of “in loco parentis” to achieve standing to sue for custody or visitation of the child. Ramey v. Sutton, 2015 OK 79. The November 17 opinion, written by Justice Joseph M. Watt, drew on the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 26, 2015, marriage equality decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, … <Read More>
Winning marriage equality nationwide (including in Florida) was cause for celebration this year, but it did not necessarily cure the legal problems of same-sex co-parents who had not previously been able to marry, as shown by an October 14 ruling by the Florida 2nd District Court of Appeal, which ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit by a woman seeking to restore contact with children she was raising with her former partner. Russell v. Pasik, 2015 … <Read More>
Justice Maria Milin of New York County Supreme Court ruled against a landlord who was seeking to evict the former domestic partner of a tenant from a rent stabilized apartment in Manhattan . The ruling, 360-363 Associates v. Hyers, NYLJ 1202737856287 (September 14, 2015), was published by the New York Law Journal on September 23. The decision may be among the earliest retroactive applications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent marriage equality ruling, Obergefell … <Read More>
Marriage equality means equal treatment of same-sex and different-sex marriages for all purposes of law.
Such is the premise of Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh’s formal opinion issued in response to an inquiry from a member of the state’s House of Delegates, asking whether the adultery laws would be violated by sexual infidelity by a spouse in a same-sex marriage. Family Law – Divorce – Whether Same-Sex Marital Infidelity Can Qualify as Adultery for … <Read More>
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 26 in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have a right to marry under the 14th Amendment, it technically reversed a ruling by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which had in November 2014 itself reversed rulings issued by federal district judges earlier in that year striking down state bans on same-sex marriage in each of the states in the circuit. Thus, as a technical matter the … <Read More>
Lancaster County, Nebraska, District Judge John A. Colborn ruled on August 5, 2015, that the state’s policy for approving adoptions of state wards and foster care licenses for same-sex couples violated the rights of gay people and same-sex couples under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Ruling in Stewart v. Heineman, the court invoked the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges in support of its ruling, but without explicitly stating why Obergefell … <Read More>
Judge David Bunning of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky rejected a claim by Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis that she has a First Amendment right to refuse to issue any marriage licenses in order to avoid compromising her religious belief that a marriage can be only between one man and one woman.
Granting the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction in Miller v. Davis on August 12, Judge Bunning concluded … <Read More>