By Kevin Cathcart, Lambda Legal Executive Director

Back-to-school time brings up mixed feelings for most students, but for some LGBTQ students, fear and anxiety are there in the mix. That’s harmful. It’s unfair. And it’s unacceptable.

Joey Ramelli and Megan Donovan were forced to drop out of high school and complete their education at home after being harassed by their classmates during their sophomore and junior years. The students taunted them with antigay slurs. Ramelli was assaulted, his car vandalized. Lambda Legal recently defended the jury decision in their favor in a California court.

K.K. Logan attended high school in Indiana, where his classmates and teachers supported him when he wore clothes typically associated with girls his age. But when Logan attended the prom wearing a dress, the principal blocked him at the door. Lambda Legal has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Logan arguing that the school violated his First Amendment rights. It’s heartening to know that many of his classmates and neighbors were on his side.

And recently at a Florida high school, 17-year-old Brittany Martin and other students who formed a gay-straight alliance (GSA) were told they didn’t have the right to meet on school grounds, a right that other student organizations were given. The ACLU took the case to federal court and won on both Equal Access Act and First Amendment grounds.

Lambda Legal has had similar victories. When a group of students in a Salt Lake City high school were told they couldn’t form a GSA, we stepped in as lead counsel for a coalition of groups that filed suit against the school district for violating the Equal Access Act. And in California, we fought and won a case on behalf of Anthony Colín and others, after the Orange Unified School District Board denied the students permission to meet. These victories and others like them support students and allies who are working together to make schools safer places where all students have the chance to pursue an equal education — and be themselves.

But even where state laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity are on the books, the fight is not over. Lambda Legal filed a ‘friend of the court’ brief to protect a state law in California that is threatened by a lawsuit brought by antigay organizations Advocates for Faith and Freedom and the Alliance Defense Fund, which seek to block their enforcement. And in New York, we spoke up when two different school districts argued that the state Human Rights Law that prohibits discrimination does not apply to them. One district has already dropped its challenge in response to our letter.

School is the place where young people learn history and geometry — and how to be in the world. They also learn how the world around them works, and they don’t miss much: they see when teachers, parents, administrators and elected officials stand up for fairness — and when they don’t.

Back-to-school blues should be about the small stuff — not about the fear of violence or discrimination, whether on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, race or any other factor.  We will soon issue an enhanced version of one of Lambda Legal’s most popular educational booklets, and we’re especially proud of the title: every child should be able to return to school and be Out, Safe and Respected.

Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond were together almost 20 years. They had adopted foster children and created a good life for their family in Washington State. Last summer they decided to take three of their children on a family cruise — but they never left the port in Miami.
 
Lisa, a healthy 39-year-old, had been cheerfully watching her children play basketball on the boat’s upper deck, when she suddenly collapsed. She was rushed by ambulance to Jackson Memorial Hospital and diagnosed with a fatal brain aneurysm.

When Janice and their children arrived at the hospital, a social worker was confrontational and rude to them. He told Janice that she was in an antigay city and state. Hospital staff would not give Janice any information about Lisa and kept the family from seeing Lisa for hours. Lisa lay dying alone with her family just feet away in the next room.

No one should have to go through what this family went through at the hospital, making a horrible tragedy worse. That seems like common sense. But even as we are making enormous strides for equality in America, this case is a stark reminder of the kind of discrimination that LGBT people and people with HIV continue to suffer. And it’s particularly egregious when it comes during medical emergencies, when everyone deserves to be treated with compassion.

Lambda Legal has filed a lawsuit against Jackson Memorial Hospital on behalf of Janice and her children. We hope to win justice for the family and also to educate people about discrimination in hospitals and health care settings. We’ve also launched a petition campaign urging the next President of the United States to create a health care plan that ensures equal access for LGBT people and people with HIV in hospitals and health care settings.

Equal access means treating people without discrimination and honoring the wishes of all patients. It also means that hospitals must create visitation policies that have a broader definition of who is considered “family.” It never occurred to Janice, for instance, that she would not be treated like her partner’s family. “We had spent almost 20 years of our life together, were raising children together,” Janice recalled. “If that’s not family, I don’t know what is.”

On top of their deep commitment to each other, Janice and Lisa had created medical power of attorney documents, which Janice had a friend fax to her at the hospital as soon as she got there. A power of attorney or health care proxy allows you to choose the person you want to make medical decisions for you and authorizes doctors and other medical staff to release information to this person. (For more information on health care documents, see “Take the Power,” Lambda Legal’s life-planning toolkit.

All people should execute these documents, but for LGBT people and people with HIV they become crucial for two reasons:

1. While different-sex spouses in every state automatically receive the right to make medical decisions for each other, same-sex couples, even those that have married, do not have this right in most states. A medical power of attorney is one of the few ways anyone can alert health care staff about their medical wishes and who should be making decisions about these wishes.
2. When discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status does occur, having this documentation gives Lambda Legal and other groups a stronger base that we can argue from.

Nothing can bring back Lisa Pond or the nearly eight hours Janice Langbehn lost with her dying partner. But we can all learn something from her suffering and help make sure this doesn’t happen again.

Apart from allowing same-sex couples to marry in California — which was itself momentous — the recent California Supreme Court ruling did something else important and notable: It reaffirmed the promise of Lambda Legal’s historic U.S. Supreme Court victory striking down all remaining state sodomy laws five years ago. This news is especially gratifying as we prepare to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Lawrence v. Texas this month.

We always knew that Lawrence was about so much more than sodomy laws — and so much more than sex. True, we began the case challenging Texas’s “homosexual conduct” law on behalf of our clients John Lawrence and Tyron Garner, who were literally dragged from John’s home one night for having private, consensual sex. But from the beginning, we argued for the fundamental right that all adults have to express private sexual intimacy without interference from the government. For the right that all people in this country have to be treated fairly under the law.

Lawrence overturned an earlier U.S. Supreme Court decision, Bowers v. Hardwick, which had upheld Georgia’s criminal sodomy law. At the time, sodomy laws were being used to justify wholesale discrimination against gay men and lesbians — keeping people from job opportunities, adoption and simply living their daily lives with dignity and respect. Bowers left all of this perfectly legal, because it asked the wrong legal question: Did gay people have a constitutional right to sodomy?

If this sounds familiar, it should. Opponents in our marriage cases often try to convince courts that we are seeking a right to “same-sex marriage,” not a right to marry that all people share. In deciding our marriage case (brought with lead counsel NCLR, the ACLU and others), the California Supreme Court did not buy the “same-sex marriage” argument. It found that some rights, like the right to sexual intimacy we secured in Lawrence, are so fundamental that they cannot be taken away from anyone. This, the court said, was true for marriage as well.

Additionally, the California Supreme Court cited Lawrence several times in its decision and used it to reject the notion that history and tradition can justify discrimination, quoting Lawrence’s now-familiar line: “…times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress.”

“For this reason,” the California Supreme Court added, “the interest in retaining a tradition that excludes an historically disfavored minority group from a status that is extended to all others — even when the tradition is long-standing and widely shared — does not necessarily represent a compelling state interest….”

The weight of Lawrence in this case — and in other marriage cases — cannot be overstated. At five years old, Lawrence v. Texas is coming of age and informing a range of cases that involve liberty and fairness.

In fact, less than a week after the California marriage win, a federal appeals court panel issued a decision in the ACLU’s case challenging the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that relied heavily on Lawrence, just as we’d urged in our friend-of-the-court brief. In the words of the court: “We hold that when the government attempts to intrude upon the personal and private lives of homosexuals, in a manner that implicates the rights identified in Lawrence, the government must advance an important governmental interest….”

In other words: based on Lawrence, the military must prove that it has an important reason for enforcing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” against a well-qualified servicemember. The case now returns to the lower court, where the military will attempt to make its case — something that will be harder now that the standards of liberty set in Lawrence have been held to apply. Meanwhile, we continue to put Lawrence to work in the fight for equality — it’s been cited in hundreds of cases addressing employment discrimination, custody rights, criminal law, and, of course, relationship recognition.

The lesson here, as we celebrate the Lawrence anniversary, is that all aspects of individual liberty and equality relate to each other. And they build upon each other.
As we secure the right to marry in a state like California it gives us added strength to pursue our work on all fronts. We are as much a part of this great nation as anyone else — and that recognition is perhaps the greatest legacy of Lawrence.

Today thousands of people across the country are taking a stand against discrimination in the workplace. Some are signing the pledge for workplace equality. Some are encouraging others to sign in pledge-a-thons throughout the day. Some will wear buttons and stickers to work, put up posters in their communities or find a few minutes during the day to educate others about the discrimination lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people with HIV can experience at work.

This is Lambda Legal’s second national day of action for workplace equality. We created this year’s Clock In: Pledge-A-Thon for Workplace Equality to call attention to the realities of workplace discrimination — and give people a simple action that anyone can take to help stop it.

Of the more than 5,000 calls to Lambda Legal’s Help Desks in 2007, questions about the rights of LGBT employees were by far the most common. Also last year, we saw the struggle over an inclusive federal employment nondiscrimination law that would have protected all LGBT people. While the House passed a non-inclusive ENDA, the Senate has not yet acted. That means there is still no federal law that expressly protects LGBT people in the workplace.

Additionally, in 30 states there is currently no statewide law providing express protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace; and in 40 states there is no statewide law providing express protection against discrimination based on gender identity. Although the Americans with Disabilities Act and similar state laws protect people with HIV from discrimination, people with HIV still experience workplace discrimination due to confidentiality breaches, unjustified fears about transmission and employers’ refusals to provide reasonable accommodations.

While there has been consistent progress, there is still much more work to be done before all LGBT people and people with HIV can make a living and pursue their professional dreams without fear of discrimination.

Recently Lambda Legal won a five-and-a-half-year battle against the U.S. State Department’s blanket ban on Foreign Service job applicants with HIV. Just as we were set to go to trial on behalf of our client Lorenzo Taylor, the department lifted the ban. It will now evaluate HIV-positive candidates on a case-by-case basis as it does for other applicants. This is a tremendous victory for people with HIV across the country.

We’re also continuing to advocate on behalf of people like Izza Lopez, a transgender woman who had her job offer withdrawn by a medical imaging company in Texas because they said she had “misrepresented” herself as a woman, and Richard Mitchell, who was fired from his position as a high school superintendent in Chicago by a new school board president who had previously campaigned against Mitchell’s hiring because he is gay.

Making change is not easy, and we need to use more than one strategy at a time. At Lambda Legal, we seek to change or enforce laws through legal action, but we know that the legal system does not work in isolation from the community. That’s why we also call on our friends and allies to mobilize, join our work and educate themselves and their neighbors.

Please add your voice to the more than 3,500 people around the country who have already signed the pledge for workplace equality. And on May 15 take a moment to talk to someone about fairness in the workplace — we’ll all be better off for it.

When you're fighting a case that seeks to break new legal and social ground, it helps to have friends. But in court the word friend has a very specific meaning.

Friends of the court, or amici in legal speak, file briefs in a case to explain research or to add another dimension to the legal arguments being made. These briefs can illustrate the breadth of support for a case or position and help erase the fear and misperceptions that often accompany so-called controversial issues.
 
Witness the recent groundswell of voices uniting around Lambda Legal's Iowa marriage case: hundreds of amici, including faith leaders, historians, social scientists, pediatricians, child advocates, etc. (many of them from Iowa) signed on to 15 friend-of-the-court briefs. Each brief spoke with authority on a particular issue, and taken together they bolstered our core argument that same-sex couples must be allowed to exercise their right to marry in Iowa. 

Two former Iowa lieutenant governors, for instance, joined a brief submitted by state elected officials arguing that the court, not the legislature, is the proper place to address the right to marry. The question of the court's authority to consider the constitutionality of exclusions from marriage has come up in every marriage case we've argued. Some people say only the legislature can decide marriage-related matters — obviously, we think this case belongs in the courts, which have long been a refuge for those seeking fair treatment when the law itself may be unfair and which have struck down many other discriminatory restrictions on marriage over the years. 

But for some courts in several states the lingering question about who decides remains.  Having a group of well-respected elected officials, including two former lieutenant governors who know the system well say that they believe the issue should be decided by the court carries a significant weight.

As helpful as it is to be friended by people in government, in marriage cases it is equally important to have friends who understand children’s needs and the social science research on child development. One of the most insidious arguments our opponents make is that allowing same-sex couples to marry will adversely affect children — here, of course, they’re talking about an abstract notion of children, not the roughly 250,000 children in this country currently being raised in households with gay or lesbian parents who will benefit from the protections for children available only through marriage.

In the Iowa case, hundreds of child advocates, social scientists, pediatricians, social workers, family doctors, and others who have worked successfully with families headed by same-sex couples in Iowa joined a handful of briefs that painted a more accurate picture of family life for same-sex couples and set forth the harms the children in these families suffer because their parents cannot marry. They all reached a similar conclusion: that families headed by gay or lesbian parents are no different than those headed by heterosexual parents and deserve the same protections. Or, as the American Psychological Association wrote so cogently in its brief: 

“Indeed, the scientific research that has directly compared outcomes for children with gay and lesbian parents with outcomes for children with heterosexual parents has been remarkably consistent in showing that lesbian and gay parents are every bit as fit and capable as heterosexual parents, and their children are as psychologically healthy and well-adjusted as children reared by heterosexual parents.”

Again, any lesbian or gay man who’s parenting knows this and could speak to it in court, but hearing it from the nation’s pre-eminent organization representing psychologists has a tremendous impact on the court — and in the court of public opinion.

We believe we will ultimately win our marriage case in Iowa, and our friends will help get us there. And just in case you were wondering, our opponents filed about half as many friend-of-the-court briefs in this case, despite claims that they had “almost a dozen.” Their side was represented by the same fringe groups spouting the same hateful arguments we’ve seen elsewhere — not the best friends to have in this case.

We’ve all been told that it is better to give than to receive. As the executive director of a community-based nonprofit, I can assure you that’s true. But in order to build and sustain a movement for equality, many people have to give so that we all can receive.

Ric Weiland was a very generous man. A high school friend of Bill Gates and a very early employee of Microsoft, he made generous contributions during his lifetime to Lambda Legal and many other LGBT and HIV organizations.

Ric died in 2006 and, because he made a plan and a commitment to the issues he cared so deeply about, his generosity lives on after him. We are honored by the bequest he made to Lambda Legal — the single biggest gift we have ever received — and inspired by his vision. He left a total of $65 million to 11 groups working for LGBT and HIV civil rights. Over the next eight years, Lambda Legal will receive a total of $11 million from Ric’s estate. With a 2008 budget of just over $12 million, this is a very significant gift to us.

I had the privilege of knowing Ric and meeting with him from time to time. He was a very thoughtful man who knew exactly what he was doing as a philanthropist — he was helping to build and sustain our movement.

He understood what we are up against. The people who hate us have never hesitated to pour money into organizations to oppose our rights. The Alliance Defense Fund, for example, has filed lawsuits or represented the other side in dozens of Lambda Legal cases. Their budget is over $27 million per year. In addition to broad conservative membership support nationwide, the group is heavily funded by the Helen DeVos Foundation (the founder of Amway who also funds the Traditional Values Coalition and Focus on the Family) and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (established by a John Birch Society member who was the founder of the Alan-Bradley company).

In other words: There are many people — some very wealthy — fueling these hate groups. And these groups don’t like it when the tables are turned. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, was fast out of the gate after Ric’s bequest was announced, criticizing the gift as a “financial incentive” to “promote homosexuality” among young people. If he fears we’ll have more resources to protect students from antigay attacks in school, then we’re proud to say he’s right.

Sometimes, in the real world, we need to fight money with money. But there is more than one way to do this. As much as we appreciate significant donors like Ric Weiland, we cannot rely on them alone. We rely on each other — all of us who give what we can, whether it’s big gifts or modest ones, to the many local, state and national groups doing important work. That’s what makes a movement. It’s us.

At Lambda Legal, membership contributions at all levels are key to our ability to do our work — and we are always honored when our members grow with us. For example, Caryn Berman and Laura Cuzzillo of Lincolnwood, Illinois, make annual membership contributions, and they recently took the next step in their commitment to equality. They let us know that they have joined the hundreds of people who have included Lambda Legal as beneficiary in their will. For Caryn and Laura this reflects their strong belief that “we all have a responsibility to each other.”

Giving generates power — not just for the receiver, but also for the person who gives. When we give money, time and expertise, we express our values, take action and align with others who have similar thoughts, beliefs and ideas. By connecting us in common purpose, giving creates community.

Ric Weiland’s gifts to Lambda Legal and to our communities will help all of us expand the work we do. But I knew Ric well enough to know that nothing would make him happier than to see his gift matched or exceeded by the gifts of many others. His legacy to all of us is more than dollars — it’s inspiration and faith in our future work for equality.

Here we go again — with the right wing targeting gay men by claiming we are bringing on a public health crisis. Antigay groups and some newspapers recently seized upon a wildly misinterpreted study about drug-resistant staph infections among some gay men in San Francisco to proclaim a full-blown epidemic. And they’re blaming gay men for a disease that has been around for a long time in the general population and has no particular leaning toward any sexual orientation.

Recently I received an email blast from Matt Barber at Concerned Women for America — the right-wing women’s organization that proclaims it is “concerned with the health and well-being of all God’s children.” The email implored Lambda Legal and other gay organizations to “publicly condemn those specific ‘high-risk behaviors,’ which this study has concluded are responsible for the spread of MRSA among homosexuals.” (MRSA or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is the name of the drug-resistant staph infections.)

One big problem: this was not the actual result of the study in question. Moreover the information directly contradicts information released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But once again hate groups have purposefully misinterpreted the data to fuel irrational fear and hatred of gay people. As someone who’s lived through the AIDS epidemic, I take personal offense at their response. And as the head of an organization that has spent decades fighting to eradicate discrimination against people with HIV, I believe we have a responsibility to counter their efforts to demonize our communities.

The study in question by the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) found that about 1/6 of 1 percent of gay men in Boston and San Francisco had contracted MRSA — a small percentage, but significant in comparison to the rest of the population. For a long time, MRSA has been commonplace in hospital settings. Several years ago, public health officials noticed an increasing number of MRSA outbreaks outside of hospital settings. Indeed, before the hysteria created by the UCSF report, the Center for Disease Control had published fact sheets regarding how to prevent outbreaks of MRSA in the workplace, in schools and among athletes.

After the UCSF study surfaced, the CDC released a statement explaining the actual facts regarding MRSA. They clarified that the strain of MRSA in the study has been seen before, and that it should be addressed by the simple prevention steps recommended for all MRSA, which include covering wounds, washing hands, not sharing personal items such as towels or clothes, and consulting a doctor promptly if you think you have contracted MRSA.

The CDC’s discussion of the report strikes the proper balance: it explains why attention should be paid to this strain of MRSA, especially among those with weakened immune systems, while explaining that this strain is nothing new and can be prevented in the same way that all MRSA can.

UCSF issued a statement of regret about the potentially misleading information in the report, deploring the “negative targeting of specific populations” that occurred in its wake. This episode taught certain public health officials a lesson that the LGBT and HIV communities knew all too well: The imparting of valuable health information about our communities must be done with care to prevent distortions and targeting by those who oppose us.

At Lambda Legal, we have been fighting prejudice and discrimination against people with HIV for years, and also fighting for fair and appropriate health care services. This year, we added “Health Care Fairness” as a specific priority for our work because we recognize that bigotry hurts us in many ways as we seek care in doctors’ offices and hospitals, or require fertility or other reproductive health care.

We’ve seen this kind of fear mongering before and we know how harmful it can be. Hate has no place in solving a public health problem. Let the public know the facts — and they won’t fall for the bigotry. And we’ll all be healthier for it.

One of my favorite headlines coming out of this primary season was on a Seattle Times editorial: "'Change' Leads Early in the Race." And it's true that change is on the tip of everyone's tongue — from voters to candidates of all political stripes, each trying to prove that he or she is the one who will offer a new vision for America, the one who will bring about real change.

But what exactly does change mean? That often depends on who is speaking the word, but one fact is undeniable: The next chief executive will have the opportunity to preside over, and hopefully champion, big changes for LGBT people and those with HIV. In this spirit, I thought I would begin the New Year by outlining a few examples of what real change might look like for our communities in the years ahead.

• We would have an inclusive Employment Nondiscrimination law. Last year's big disappointment was Congress's failure to enact an employment nondiscrimination law. Adding insult to injury, the House removed protections for transgender people in the bill it eventually passed. Real change would give us a law that Lambda Legal could use to protect all LGBT people across the country from workplace discrimination.

• "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" would end. With lawsuits currently challenging the policy and more gay and lesbian servicemembers speaking out against it every day, there is no question that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is losing ground, even in Congress. I recently talked to Col. Grethe Cammemeyer — Lambda Legal had challenged the military's previous antigay policy on her behalf and won — and she talked about the tragedy of making people choose between living honestly and serving their country. This is a choice no one should have to make.

• We would change the government's discriminatory HIV policies. More than four years ago, Lambda Legal filed a case on behalf of Lorenzo Taylor who, though he was more than qualified, was denied employment by the U.S. Foreign Service because he has HIV. The State Department under the current administration has stubbornly refused to change this discriminatory policy, and we are set to go to trial later this winter. Federal law prohibits the government from discriminating against people with disabilities, including HIV — and the government, if anyone, must comply with federal law. Similarly, discriminatory immigration policies targeting people with HIV must end.

• Hate crimes protections would give young people across America safer schools and shield all of us from antigay violence. The defeat of last year's hate crimes bill — named after Matthew Shepherd, the gay Wyoming college student who was beaten to death in 1998 — marked another Congressional failure. While the bill was not directly aimed at students, it would have strengthened protections for them by making discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender and disabilities a federal crime. We are currently litigating two cases (in New Jersey and California) on behalf of gay students who were harassed in school. Students deserve to attend school without fearing violence and harassment because they are gay — real change would bring protections to help make this happen.

• Marriage equality would be a reality. I've said it before and I'll say it again: LGBT people will not be truly equal until those same-sex couples who want to have the right to marry. This is beyond marriage. It is simply about being treated fairly under law. Real change would pave the way for marriage equality in every state.

When people speak about change, they often quote Gandhi, who said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." I like this because it gives each of us the chance to do our own small part to change the world we live in. And this is something we can hold on to regardless of who wins the next presidential election.   

A group of 28 retired generals and admirals recently released a letter urging Congress to repeal the military’s beleaguered “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy — a policy that has destroyed the careers of approximately 12,000 servicemembers since 1993. Think about that number: 12,000 people who served their country with distinction, in many cases going off to war, but who were ultimately forced to give up their careers because they were discovered to be gay or lesbian.

During this time in civilian life, our communities have made great progress in the workplace. Today more than one third of all U.S. states protect people from being fired based on sexual orientation. A growing number of employers and city and local governments also offer these important protections. But, in the words of our colleagues at Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, DADT remains “the only law in the land that authorizes the firing of an American for being gay....”

The emphasis there is mine. The policy not only authorizes these firings, it compels them, unless servicemembers can hide their sexual orientation. This is the most insidious part of the DADT equation, forcing people to make the choice between their careers and other equally important areas of life. And even when people do make the painful decision to stay in the closet and preserve their service, there is still the threat of being “discovered.”

That’s what happened to Major Margaret Witt. Highly decorated throughout 19 years of military service, Witt was fired after someone else revealed that she had lived with a civilian same-sex partner hundreds of miles from her military base. Lambda Legal submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in the ACLU’s federal case challenging DADT on Witt’s behalf, asking the question: If DADT does not allow Witt to serve, when she made every effort to keep her sexual orientation private, whom would it allow?

The past 14 years have given us the answer: All gay and lesbian servicemembers are at risk, and that risk surfaces in many ways. We recently represented a gay man whose custody rights were threatened by DADT when his soon-to-be-ex-wife mounted a custody challenge based, in part, on the fact that he had a same-sex partner. Our client could have lost his job and his pension (and thus his means of supporting his children, as well as himself) if his identity and sexual orientation had become public in the course of filing court papers in a custody case.

Cases like this illustrate the policy’s devastating ramifications in both personal and professional arenas, as servicemembers are forced to assess whether exercising their rights constitutes “telling” their sexual orientation — while their careers hang in the balance.

The U.S. military is the largest employer in the nation. Service can provide a gateway to education and training, highly placed government jobs and elected office. It is also an inroad to more basic benefits, pensions, etc. To deny gay and lesbian people access to these benefits is damaging, discriminatory and demeaning to all servicemembers.

In their letter to Congress, the 28 retired generals and admirals noted as much. “As is the case in Britain, Israel and other nations which allow gays and lesbians to serve openly, our servicemembers are professionals who are able to work together effectively despite differences in race, gender, religion and sexuality,” they wrote. Indeed three out of four soldiers returning from Iraq or Afghanistan said they had no problem fighting alongside gay and lesbian soldiers, according to a recent Zogby poll.

The group of 28 also cited scholarly data showing 65,000 gay and lesbian soldiers currently serving in the military — that’s far too many people living with the fear that they could be fired anywhere, anytime simply because of who they are. It’s time to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” America’s armed forces would be much stronger for it.

Read more >>

Combating the Military’s Antigay Policy
by Hayley Gorenberg, Deputy Legal Director

Q & A with Kathi S. Westcott
Deputy Director for Law for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network

October 25, 2007, marked the one-year anniversary of the landmark decision in Lambda Legal’s lawsuit Lewis v. Harris, where the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously declared that same-sex couples must be treated equally under the law. That decision started New Jersey on the road to marriage equality — and further propelled the fight for equality across the country.

Unfortunately, a few months later, the New Jersey legislature threw up a barricade when it opted for a civil union law instead of marriage equality. In the year since the court ruling one thing is more clear than ever: civil unions are not equal and they’re not working.

By creating a separate status for same-sex couples, the government invites discrimination, and sadly, in New Jersey and other states with civil unions this discrimination is occurring. Even where same-sex couples appear to have the same concrete benefits that married couples do, they do not have the security and dignity of being able to explain to their children, their neighbors, or their children’s teachers that they are married. Civil union is a discriminatory label that renders same-sex couples different and inferior, and no amount of tinkering with the rules and benefits can erase that stain of inequality.

Since the New Jersey civil union law passed, Lambda Legal has worked directly with more than one hundred individuals who have called us seeking help addressing unequal treatment or disregard for their civil unions. Garden State Equality counts scores more. Often we confront the civil union law’s failure in employers’ denial of family health insurance. We experienced this with United Parcel Service in New Jersey.

When UPS first read the civil union law, it reached the wrong conclusion and declined to provide family benefits to two employees in civil unions. We brought legal action against the company and it soon relented. This is great, but UPS is only one company: We should not have to fight for the same rights over and over. Moreover same-sex couples cannot walk through life with lawyers at their side.

At best, people do not understand what civil union laws mean. They see that gay people are denied marriage, and they take away a discriminatory message from that. That is the common denominator of the matters we’ve handled at Lambda Legal: civil union laws invite discrimination.

Connecticut is grappling with this very issue. Any day now that state’s supreme court will rule in a marriage case brought by Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders before the state passed its civil union law in 2005. Lambda Legal submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in that case, adding our expertise on why civil unions are not enough and why the court should order full marriage rights.

Courts in Iowa and California where Lambda Legal and other groups have marriage cases will also have the opportunity to rule in favor of equality in those states (not insignificantly, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently vetoed a marriage bill passed by the legislature, saying that it was up to the court to make this decision). In New Jersey, however, this is now in the hands of the legislature. 

As someone who was born and raised in New Jersey, I have stood proudly when my home state has set an example, as it has in the past, for fairness. On the first anniversary of the Lewis v. Harris decision, I call upon New Jersey and all of the states with marriage cases or legislation pending to lead the way: Fulfill the promise of equality and allow same-sex couples to marry.  

It’s been a difficult few weeks for the LGBT community — ever since Congressional leaders introduced a stripped-down version of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), unleashing a storm of disappointment, outrage and soul-searching among our communities.

But perhaps in facing down adversity we begin to realize who we really are. What I’ve realized in these past few weeks is that the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, while comprised of so many different groups and interests, is stronger than ever. Though we may take different views on issues, as some of us have regarding this important legislation, we are hardly fractured (as a few columnists might like to believe). We are standing tall as a powerful force for civil rights in this country.

A brief recap of the past few weeks: Congressional leaders, afraid they would not have enough votes for an inclusive ENDA, stripped out protections for transgender people that this bill sought to provide. Groups, including Lambda Legal, swiftly protested, making clear that a bill that did not protect all of us would be unacceptable. 

Lambda Legal then released an analysis of the bill showing that there were a number of loopholes that made the new version of the bill inadequately protective even for lesbian, gay and bisexual people.  Four other major LGBT legal organizations joined Lambda Legal and issued a joint statement expanding upon our analysis of the bill. We explained that by deleting the previously-included ban on discrimination based on gender identity and expression, House leaders severely weakened protections that would have been provided for lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals who may not conform to common stereotypes of what it means to be male or female in our society. We and the other four major LGBT legal organizations all joined more than 150 organizations calling for an inclusive employment nondiscrimination bill.  I've been heartened to see so many people realize that, when one part of the community is harmed, it affects us all.

When we decided at Lambda Legal to expressly add the rights of transgender people to our mission statement, it was not simply lip service. We recognized that diversity was a strength, not a deficit, and that, as our ranks grew, our work and our impact would continue to broaden.

We had also been fighting — and continue to fight — discrimination based on gender identity in cases involving identity documents, access to medical treatment and employment. Through this work we have come to see the inextricable links between discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and sex stereotypes. Truth is, we are all "gender non-conforming" in that we break gender stereotypes about relationships and identity.  We have been fighting from the beginning for the right to be ourselves and live without discrimination based on stereotypes that we be or act like something else.

Any time we parse out rights based on one characteristic, too many people fall through the cracks. As my colleague H. Alexander Robinson, director of the National Black Justice Coalition, recently pointed out, during the Black Civil Rights movement, rights came incrementally but they were extended to everyone.

Members of the LGBT community are feeling strong emotions now — angry, energized, inspired.  I hope we keep our eyes on the prize and direct our energy at our representatives in Congress who will vote either to uphold or deny our rights.

Congress must pass strong protection against employment discrimination to all lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people. We cannot compromise and accept a version of ENDA that does not protect people from both sexual orientation discrimination and discrimination based on gender identity and expression. If a narrower law were enacted, it would leave behind some who are most in need of protection against discrimination and would hinder our legal work on behalf of victims of workplace discrimination. Standing up for an inclusive law may make the fight tougher at the moment, but in the end we will all be stronger for it.

We knew it wouldn’t take long before the Iowa judge who struck down the state’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples was pegged an “activist judge” by the usual suspects. They say they are defending “traditional” marriage and our democracy itself. But their attacks on the judicial system are about as un-democratic as you can get.

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and Republican presidential hopeful led the pack, weighing in just minutes after the ruling was announced. Clearly without enough time to read the 63-page decision, he called it “…another example of an activist court and unelected judges trying to redefine marriage and disregard the will of the people….”

Meanwhile, in Iowa some politicians used the ruling to call for a state constitutional amendment that would restrict marriage to one man and one woman. Senator Paul McKinley claimed most Republicans, “believed a constitutional amendment was necessary because all it takes is one person in a black robe to declare a law invalid.” Christopher Rants, his colleague in the assembly, reiterated this point, blaming state Democrats for opposing the amendment and “trying to appease special interest groups.”

What is going on here? It’s old-fashioned antigay sentiment wrapped up in attacks on America’s independent courts. The problem is these tactics are as dangerous as the homophobia that inspires them.

When politicians attack judges who are simply doing their job enforcing the Constitution, it is a strike against our government itself. The founders of this country recognized the danger of placing too much power in any one part of the government. To avoid this, they separated authority into three branches, the legislative, executive and judicial. The branches exercise “checks and balances” over one another, to ensure that the law of the land is upheld and that the core principles of liberty and equality are available to everyone.  

Within this system, the courts have always been the appropriate place for people to seek help when their constitutional rights have been denied. America’s founders agreed that there were certain rights so fundamental that they cannot be taken away, regardless of majority sentiment. Whether the issues invoked are considered controversial or not, even the fervor of 99 percent of the public does not entitle people in power to deprive those in the 1 percent minority of their fundamental constitutional rights.

Under America’s system of government, there are some things that we simply do not get to vote on. We have no say, for instance, about whether others get to practice a religion, engage in free speech or have children. Without a powerful reason like a person’s inability to consent, “the people” also don’t get to vote on whether or whom heterosexuals may marry. Why should they have the right to vote on whether or whom gay people may marry?

The Constitution protects us all against the ardor of those who believe passionately in the rightness of their cause. Regardless of the strength of their belief or how many may join them, they are not entitled to impose their will on others. Nor can they attack a court that rules in favor of fairness with desperate cries of “activist judge.”

Politicians’ strong words against the courts may win them support from some people at the polls, but this comes at great risk to the system of government upon which this country was founded. That means anyone who attacks independent courts is, in essence, attacking America. We need to stand up and denounce these attacks in Iowa and anywhere else they occur. Our courts, our Constitution and our country depend on it. 

Tip O’Neil, the late U.S. Speaker of the House from Massachusetts, once said, “all politics is local.” He was describing how the spirit of America’s towns and cities affects what their legislators do in Washington. The same could be said of the LGBT community: what happens at the municipal level can have a great impact on the national movement.

I’ve been thinking a lot about O’Neil’s quote these past few weeks, as the fray over Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle and his spew of antigay bigotry has intensified. Naugle’s comments ranged from the idiotic (he doesn’t call gay people gay because he says most “aren’t happy”) to the offensive (the city should stop marketing to gay tourists because of the high HIV rates in the area).

Days after Naugle’s public tirade began, a few people in Fort Lauderdale’s gay community formed a group called Unite Fort Lauderdale. Within weeks, they’d spurred activism online and off, first calling for Naugle to apologize and, when he refused, staging a demonstration outside city hall that attracted nearly 1,000 people, including national activists like my friend Matt Foreman, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

At the rally Foreman said Naugle’s comments were not merely offensive to Fort Lauderdale’s residents but that they “demean gay people from coast to coast.”

Sure enough the response from LGBT communities across the country has been enormous. Many national groups have joined the Task Force in calling for the city and county commissions to condemn Naugle. And I’ve heard more than a few people say that they will now think twice before traveling to Fort Lauderdale, which ranks high as a destination for gay travelers.

As a community we’ve had success in voting with our purses, so to speak. Remember back in the early 90s when the Colorado legislature passed its heinous antigay legislation that led to our historic U.S. Supreme Court victory Romer v. Evans? You couldn’t find a gay skier on the slopes. On the flipside, surveys show that LGBT people like visiting places where our communities are treated well.

For travelers looking to support localities doing good for their LGBT residents, I might suggest a few places in Washington State. In recent weeks, such cities as Bellevue, Newcastle and Redmond have voted to extend domestic partner health benefits to their public employees. It all began in Bellevue, where Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit on behalf of two firefighters and a 911 dispatcherwho for years had faced unequal treatment in the workplace. While the city routinely provided health benefits to partners of married employees, it refused to give the same benefits to employees’ same-sex partners.

In less than two months, the Bellevue City Council saw the inequality inherent in this scheme and approved a family benefits plan for gay and lesbian public employees. The attention generated around the case locally through the media and nationally through Lambda Legal’s Clock In for Equality workplace day of action paid off when a couple of police officers from the city of Redmond contacted us a few weeks later with a similar story of discrimination. This time we were able to convince the city to approve family benefits for gay and lesbian public employees simply by writing a letter. That plan is expected to be finalized later this month.

As a national organization, Lambda Legal recognizes that what happens at the local level can make a big difference in people’s daily lives. That’s why we file lawsuits and do advocacy work at every level. And it’s why people all over the country are supporting Unite Fort Lauderdale in its efforts to combat a mayor who thrives on homophobia. Let’s hope city officials in Florida take a cue from their colleagues in Washington State.

In case you had any doubts about the new Supreme Court, the past couple of weeks have confirmed our worst fears: The pendulum has swung far to the right. That is why we have to roll up our sleeves and work as hard as we have ever worked before.

We understood the risks. Lambda Legal opposed President Bush’s new appointees, Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito, and worked with other groups to raise important questions about their judicial philosophies.

What we didn’t know was how fast the new conservative majority would act to roll back historic civil rights principles — in the words of Justice Stephen G. Breyer: “It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much.” The irony is that our opponents call jurists on our side “activist judges”!

Breyer was referring to the court’s 5-4 decision that invalidated school integration plans in Seattle and Louisville, Kentucky, but his words are an apt summary of the entire term. In fact, according to the New York Times, one third of the court’s decision’s were decided by 5-4 margins and most along ideological lines. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (the author of Lambda Legal’s historic Supreme Court victory striking down all sodomy laws) has taken up the mantle of the vital swing vote — and he is proving to be more conservative than his predecessor in this role, Sandra Day O’Connor.

In addition to striking down certain school integration plans, the court curtailed taxpayers’ right to challenge the president’s use of federal money for faith-based initiatives, limited people’s ability to bring employment discrimination lawsuits and put women’s reproductive health and rights at risk by upholding the so-called federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Fair and impartial courts are vital to our democracy, and at Lambda Legal we take the fight for fair courts seriously. Through our Courting Justice project, we continue to work on several levels. While the Supreme Court often steals the limelight, other federal and state judicial nominations are also important. (Remember only 60 or so cases are decided by the Supreme Court every year while thousands terminate at lower federal courts; additionally state courts have the final say in many matters affecting LGBT people and those with HIV.)

Lambda Legal has taken an active role in speaking out about nominations in the past few years, sometimes opposing candidates and other times pushing Congress to ask tough questions of nominees. Most recently we submitted questions to Senator Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vermont) concerning the nomination of Fifth Circuit nominee Leslie Southwick. At issue for us was a ruling Southwick joined saying a mother’s bisexuality could be a factor in a custody lawsuit. A few of our questions made it word for word into the public record, and although Southwick’s fate is still unclear, we are confident that our voice made a difference.

As we continue to lay the groundwork for fair courts in the nominations process, we are equally committed to helping people understand why courts matter and how decisions at every level affect people’s lives. Lambda Legal’s “Life Without Fair Courts,” comic strip series offers a surreal take on what life would be like without certain precedent-setting decisions. We’re also running an illustration contest where we’ve asked people to give us their take on “Life Without Fair Courts.”

We hope the comics will make people laugh, but more importantly, we hope they deliver the message that fair courts are a crucial component of our democracy and often the last bastion of hope for those who’ve been denied fundamental rights.

We know what it means to support “fair and independent courts.” It does not mean that the LGBT community will win every court battle or that judges will always agree with our positions. What it does mean is that the Supreme Court and every other court in our country must uphold our Constitution for all people. Our courts must hear all voices and protect the rights of everyone, regardless of whether the people seeking their protection are in the majority or the minority.

Another Pride season has arrived and there is so much to celebrate.  Legislatures across the country are enacting state anti-discrimination statutes and laws to provide legal protections to people in same-sex relationships. 

So far, 20 states have laws that expressly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and 12 expressly prohibit gender identity discrimination. There is now only one state where same-sex couples can legally marry, but an additional nine states where many legal protections are available through civil unions or domestic partnerships. Government officials in two states have also said they will honor valid marriages of same-sex couples from other states or countries.

What is most amazing about the legal protections for same-sex relationships is that none of them existed just seven years ago.  Lambda Legal’s groundbreaking litigation helped to secure and set the stage for these remarkable advances.  Together with our partners, we are moving history forward — and moving quickly.

We are proud, but there are still plenty of challenges ahead to keep us fired up.  There are still more states that do not have specific laws against LGBT discrimination than states that do, and many more states where there are no protections for people in same-sex relationships.  LGBT people and people with HIV face discrimination and legal barriers in other parts of their lives, whether they are raising children, attending school, seeking health care, serving in the military or buying a home. 

Good laws are vital but they are not the end of the story.  They are the tools we use to protect people and fight for our real goal — full equality.

For example, Lambda Legal recently filed a lawsuit against Countrywide, the self described “America’s #1 home loan lender,” on behalf of a lesbian couple.  When Laura Watts moved in with Adola DeWolf, they filled out the papers to add Watts’ name to the mortgage.  The mortgage company told them that it would not recognize them as a family and then sought full repayment of the loan.  It turned out that Countrywide was not on their side, but Lambda Legal was.  We are suing the mortgage company for discrimination under the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of marital status. 

I have been part of the LGBT civil rights movement long enough to remember early Pride marches when we had none of the laws we have today.  When we first marched, there were no state laws prohibiting discrimination against lesbians and gay men, and no laws that protected transgender people.  We barely even imagined, then, that our relationships and families would be recognized under the law and that there would be any state where we could legally marry.  The world has changed — and we changed it by showing our pride, making our case in the courts and making our lives visible.   

And while some of us have been to many Pride events, each year is the first time for many others.  Young and old people who are just coming out; family members who join their LGBT children, sisters or brothers for the first time; transgender people who are transitioning; people who travel to a new place to feel safe; friends, advocates and allies who come to show their support — there are thousands of stories and reasons why people come to Pride.  When we all come together, we make change happen.

Happy Pride, from all of us at Lambda Legal to you.  We have a lot to make us proud, but we have a lot more work to do.  Come out, speak up, get active, create change, have fun.  We hope to see you there!