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>
same-sex marriage
Transgender Woman Wins New Trial on Inheritance From Her Husband
A three-judge panel of the Texas Court of Appeals ruled on February 13 that Nikki Araguz, a transgender woman who is the surviving spouse of Texas firefighter Thomas Araguz, is entitled to a trial of the question whether her marriage with Thomas was valid. Thomas died without a will, and his mother and ex-wife (suing on behalf of his children) contend that the marriage was not valid and thus cannot provide the basis for an … <Read More>
Judicial Attention Shifts Back to Marriage Recognition as Federal Judge Nixes Kentucky Ban
One of the first federal court decisions to apply the Supreme Court’s June 26 DOMA ruling to the question of state marriage recognition came quickly last July, when U.S. District Judge Timothy S. Black in Ohio ordered the state to recognize a Maryland same-sex marriage for purposes of a death certificate. That court order was followed up by a detailed opinion in December in Obergefell v. Wymyslo, 2013 WL 6726688 (S.D. Ohio, Dec. 23, 2013), … <Read More>
Nevada Officials Decline to Defend Their Marriage Ban in Pending 9th Circuit Appeal
In a sharp change of course, Nevada’s governor and attorney general announced on February 10 that they would not defend the state’s ban on same-sex marriage in a case pending before the San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The back-story to this development is interesting and a bit complicated:
On January 21, Nevada’s Attorney General, Catherine Cortez Masto, filed the state’s brief in Sevcik v. Sandoval, a lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal on … <Read More>
The Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage – A Chronology of Landmark Developments
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>
9th Circuit Holds Sexual Orientation Requires Heightened Scrutiny in Gay Juror Case
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>
Oklahoma Federal District Court Declares Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Unconstitutional
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>
Same-Sex Marriages in Utah – “On Hold”?
On December 20, 2013, US District Judge Shelby ruled in Kitchen v. Herbert that Utah’s constitutional amendment and statutes banning the performance or recognition of same-sex marriages violated the 14th Amendment. He was ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment. Since the state’s motion did not ask him to grant a stay in case his ruling went against them, he didn’t stay his ruling, which culminated in an injunction barring enforcement of the same-sex marriage ban. … <Read More>
Supreme Court Blocks Utah Marriages Pending 10th Circuit Decision
This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the following order:
MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 2014
ORDER IN PENDING CASE
13A687 HERBERT, GOV. OF UT, ET AL. V. KITCHEN, DEREK, ET AL.
The application for stay presented to Justice Sotomayor and
by her referred to the Court is granted. The permanent
injunction issued by the United States District Court for the
District of Utah, case No. 2:13-cv-217, on December 20, 2013, is
stayed pending final disposition of … <Read More>
Utah Plaintiffs Strongly Counter State’s Supreme Court Stay Application in Marriage Equality Case
Today the attorneys for the plaintiffs in Kitchen v. Herbert, the Utah marriage equality case, filed their opposition with the Supreme Court to the state’s application for a stay of the trial court ruling.
Under the trial court ruling, issued on Dec. 20, same-sex marriages began happening in Utah that date. On December 23, the trial judge, Robert Shelby, denied the state’s motion to stay his ruling pending appeal. Two days later, a panel of … <Read More>