From the NY Times:

Court Rejects Same-Sex Marriage Ban in California
By JESSE McKINLEY and JOHN SCHWARTZ

SAN FRANCISCO - Saying that it discriminates against gay men and women, a federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, handing supporters of such unions at least a temporary victory in a legal battle that seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court.

Wednesday’s decision is just the latest chapter in what is expected to be a long battle over the ban - Proposition 8, which was passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote. Indeed, while striking down Proposition 8, the decision will not immediately lead to any new same-sex marriages being performed in California. Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, immediately stayed his own decision, pending appeals by proponents of Proposition 8, who seem confident that higher courts would hear and favor their position.

But on Wednesday the winds seemed to be at the back of those who feel that marriage is not, as the voters of California and many other states have said, solely the province of a man and a woman.

“Proposition 8 cannot withstand any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause,” wrote Judge Walker. “Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.”

Supporters of Proposition 8 said that the decision defied the will of the people of California, and could well be an issue in November’s midterm elections.

“This is going to set off a groundswell of opposition,” said Jim Garlow, the pastor of Skyline Church in La Mesa, Calif., and a prominent supporter of Proposition 8. “It’s going to rally people that might have been silent.”

Wednesday’s decision applied only to California and not to the dozens of other states that have either constitutional bans or other prohibitions against same-sex marriage. Nor does it affect federal law, which does not recognize such unions.

Still, the very existence of federal court ruling recognizing same-sex marriage in California, the nation’s most populous state, set off cheers of “We won!” from crowds assembled in front of the courthouse in San Francisco. Evening rallies and celebrations were planned in dozens of cities across the state and several across the nation.

In West Hollywood, Ron Cook, 46, an accountant who is gay, said he was thrilled by the decision. “If the court had come back and upheld it,” he said. “I would have moved out of the state.”

The plaintiffs’ case was argued by David Boies and Theodore B. Olson, ideological opposites who once famously sparred in the 2000 Supreme Court battle between George W. Bush and Al Gore over the Florida recount and the presidency. The lawyers brought the case - Perry v. Schwarzenegger - in May 2009 on behalf of two gay couples who said that Proposition 8 impinged on their constitutional rights to equal protection and due process.

On Wednesday, Mr. Olson called the decision a “victory for the American people,” and anyone who had been denied rights “because they are unpopular, because they are a minority, because they are viewed differently.”

For advocates of gay rights, same-sex marriage has increasingly become a central issue in their battle for equality, seen as both an emotional indicator of legitimacy and as a practical way to lessen discrimination.

“Being gay is about forming an adult family relationship with a person of the same sex,” said Jennifer Pizer, the marriage project director for Lambda Legal in Los Angeles, who filed two briefs in support of the plaintiffs. “So denying us equality within the family system is to deny respect for the essence of who we are as gay people.”

But Andrew Pugno, a lawyer for the defense, said Proposition 8 had nothing to do with discrimination, but rather with the will of California voters who “simply wished to preserve the historic definition of marriage.”

“The other side’s attack upon their good will and motives is lamentable and preposterous,” Mr. Pugno said in a statement.

During the trial, which ended in June, plaintiffs offered evidence from experts on marriage, sociology and political science, and emotional testimony from the two couples who had brought the case. Proponents for Proposition 8 offered a much more straightforward defense of the measure, saying that same-sex marriage damaged traditional marriage as an institution and that marriage was historically rooted in the need to foster procreation, which same-sex unions cannot, and was thus fundamental to the existence and survival of the human race.

But Judge Walker seemed skeptical of those claims. “Tradition alone, however,” he wrote, “cannot form the rational basis for a law.”

Even before appeals to higher courts, Judge Walker seemed ready to continue to hear arguments, telling both sides to submit responses to his motion to stay the decision by Friday, at which point he could lift or extend it.

How the decision might play politically was also still unclear. In 2004, same-sex marriage was seen as a wedge issue that helped draw conservatives to the polls, and Richard Socarides, who advised President Bill Clinton on gay rights issues, said that this decision could be used as a rallying cry for Republicans again. “But Democrats and most importantly President Obama will now have to take sides on whether gays deserve full equality,” Mr. Socarides wrote in an e-mail.

In California, it could also affect the race for governor. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has been vocal in his support of same-sex marriage in his current role as California attorney general and hailed the decision on Wednesday. Meg Whitman, a Republican, has taken the position that marriage should be between a man and a woman - in line with the language of Proposition 8 - though she says that she strongly supports the state’s domestic partnership laws, which afford many of the same rights as marriage.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a statement on Wednesday supported the ruling, saying it “affirms the full legal protections” for thousands of gay Californians.

Some gay rights activists initially feared the case, believing that a loss at a federal level could set back their more measured efforts to gain wider recognition for same-sex marriage, which is legal in five states and the District of Columbia. But those concerns seemed to fade as the trial began, and on Wednesday, the mood was of elation and cautious optimism that Mr. Boies and Mr. Olson’s initial victory might change the debate.

Kate Kendell, executive director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said that she believed that there were members of the Supreme Court who “have a very deep-seated bias against L.G.B.T. people,” meaning lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. But, she added, “This legal victory profoundly changes the conversation” by involving “folks in the legal world and the policy world who were previously unmoved by this struggle.”

For those who had actually filed the suit, Wednesday’s victory, while measured, also seemed sweet.

“This decision says that we are Americans, too. We too should be treated equally,” said Kristin M. Perry, one of the plaintiffs. “Our family is just as loving, just as real and just valid as anyone else’s.”

Jesse McKinley reported from San Francisco, and John Schwartz from New York. Malia Wollan contributed reporting from San Francisco, and Rebecca Cathcart from West Hollywood, Calif.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 5, 2010

An earlier version of the multimedia presentation running with this article reversed the surnames of the plaintiffs Paul Katami and Jeff Zarillo.

Civil to one another

Fri, Jul 02, 2010

As the Civil Partnership Bill goes through the Dáil, Fiona McCann talks to three couples about how it will affect their relationships

‘We consider ourselves to be as good as married, so we consider this to be almost ticking a box’

Michael Walsh, partner in the law firm BryneWallace, and Des Crowley, doctor, have been together for 12 and a half years. They plan to become civil partners, and have a civil partnership ceremony already organised for later this month, with a blessing in the Unitarian Church followed by a meal and celebration for friends, family, colleagues and business associates.

Des Crowley (left) and Michael Walsh. Photograph: Alan Betson

MICHAEL : We consider ourselves to be as good as married, we consider ourselves to be family . . . so in some respects we consider this to be almost ticking a box. But going through a process of preparing for the Civil Partnership ceremony has been an enlightening experience for us because it actually has brought new definition to our relationship, and brought about a renewed commitment.

DES : Initially, for me anyway, it was about just protecting the legality of the relationship . . . but I have been really surprised how the experience of the last month or six weeks has actually changed that and how much more important it has become to me.

MICHAEL : There have been certain elements of the LGB community who might have rejected the whole notion of civil partnership because it’s not full marriage. And whereas I agree in part with the sentiment that what will be provided for in law doesn’t go far enough, it certainly goes far enough for us to be acceptable, particularly in our own individual circumstances.

DES : Ultimately it is down to the practical issue of our home together, the tax situation, the pension situation, and what is really important for us is our next of kin. Because it’s extraordinary that . . . even though you may be living with a person for 12 years, if anything was to happen to you and you were unable to make your own decision, that the people that they turn to is your parents.

MICHAEL : For me the ceremonial aspect of it is really important, and although we are together 12 years, we haven’t yet stood in front of our nearest and dearest and said ‘this is it’. And to have the opportunity now to do this and for it to also mean something from a legal point of view is fundamental.

DES : While it would have been preferable if the legislation had included the rights for gay parents to adopt, there is an expediency about it as well. If you continue the next five or 10 years fighting for that right, in the meantime so many other situations are not regularised, and some people do not have the luxury of time. They’re unwell, or they’re elderly, and there are a lot of complicated legal issues that need to be sorted out for these couples.

MICHAEL : I’ve been writing to the Minister every fortnight, explaining to him the date of our blessing and how important it is that the Bill would have cleared through the main house of the Oireachtas before our date . . .What is important to us is the certainty that it will happen, so we decided to press the button with the sense that it was effectively a done deal . . .

I’m sure we’ll look back in years to come and wonder why it took so long for the State to finally recognise that it isn’t a bad thing to recognise love between consenting adults and a love that’s about long-term commitment and the creation of family.

‘This Bill is not going to do anything for us, for our family. And legally, our family doesn’t exist’

Orla Egan-Morley and Catherine Egan-Morley have been together for more than eight years, and have a four-year-old son called Jacob. Catherine is director of Southside Travellers Action Group, and Orla is training and development officer with BeLonG To youth services.

ORLA : It should be a day for celebration and I just feel really disappointed that the politicians haven’t had the courage to legislate for equality and take a child-centred approach to the legislation. [This Bill] is not going to do anything for us, for our family. And legally, our family doesn’t exist.

CATHERINE : I feel let down for my son because it doesn’t acknowledge his place; It doesn’t make any reference to his rights to have two parents, which he has . . . It hits me very deeply because I am his non-biological parent. It hits me on an equality level, but it also hits me on a gut level.

ORLA : Jacob asked me recently, “What’s marriage? What’s a wedding?”. And I said, “Sometimes when people love one another very much it’s a ceremony they do to mark that love.” He looked at me and Catherine and said “We all love one another, why can’t we get married?” How do you explain to a four-year-old that there are some people who think your family is not worth protecting? . . . I don’t care about the money stuff; I care about the rights of my child. I could get up in the morning and take him away from one of his parents and neither he nor she would have any right to fight back.

CATHERINE : We’ve been living together for almost eight years. We own our home together. . . it only takes one person to look at the letter of the law, and if I have him in the hospital and he has a broken leg, I won’t be allowed to make any decisions because I’m not his legal parent or guardian. Right now in the eyes of the country we live in, in the place that we’re committed to, where we bought our home and live our lives, Orla is a lone parent and I’m a single woman . . . The most public commitment we could ever make to each other is have a child together.

ORLA : We spent a long time planning to have Jacob . . . we changed our names by deed poll so that we all shared the same surname, Egan-Morley. We made sure we had our wills in order, we took as many legal steps as we could, but the bottom line is that there is no legal relationship there between Jacob and one of his parents . . . We don’t want to go somewhere else to get married and not have that marriage recognised here.

I want to be able to get married, and have Jacob have a formal legal relationship with both of his parents in the country where he lives.

‘The ritual, the declaration, it’s an affirmation. People forget that. Everyone should be entitled to that’

Don McClave and Wil Matthews have been together for seven years. Don is an Apple Mac specialist and technical support operative and Wil is a public servant. They had a Civil Partnership ceremony in Belfast earlier this year.

DON : It was pretty much love at first sight - we moved in together after about six months. We’d both been aware of marriage and civil partnership as a political issue, but around the time we were five years together, we said we’d really like to do this. We decided that if we waited for the pace of legislative progress here, we’d all be dead and buried.

We could have gone to Spain or Canada and gone for a full marriage, but that wasn’t practical for economic reasons, and since such marriages weren’t going to be recognised here - we’d been following the Zappone-Gilligan case - we thought we’d be more realistic about it. Civil partnership in Belfast was doable.

WIL : We went up to lodge our petition to have our Civil Partnership in December, and we had it on the 17th of April . . . We had some family members who were not getting any younger and we wanted them to have the day out, and we wanted to be able to get up in front of our loved ones and make a declaration of love for one another . . . It was a really joyous occasion. And even though we’ve been together seven years, our relationship feels different now.

Even though we’re not recognised here, we’ve no legal standing, to us it just feels different. The ritual, the declaration, it’s an affirmation. People forget that. Everyone should be entitled to that and everyone should be entitled to having that celebration with family and friends. It’s not a gay right; it’s just a fundamental human right.

DON : Every step is progress, and we welcome this Civil Partnership Bill, but even so, it’s not enough. We want marriage: not gay marriage, just marriage for all . . . [with this new Bill] presumably when we can present our certificate and have it recorded and acknowledged, we can look at practical things.

There have been some situations where Wil’s been in hospital and I haven’t been able to go through with him to the A&E procedures. So having that kind of recognition, that would give some measure of protection with a hospital official . . . And in the areas of social welfare, inheritance, next-of-kin rights, immediately we have some kind of status.

WIL : While this bill is fantastic and we do welcome it, we will gain some rights and entitlements, but not all, and we’re very clear about that: there’ll be many that we won’t be entitled to.

DON : They’re picking and choosing where they confer equality, but you can’t have equality where you are creating a separate legal classification for same-sex couples.

© 2010 The Irish Times

The passage of Question 1 in Maine (a referendum vetoing the state’s law recognizing same-sex marriages) feels like one step forward and two steps back. Opponents of the state’s marriage equality law campaigned on fear and misinformation. We must not let our spirits be broken but continue to to fight for equality.

Read The Lesson in Losing by Cody Daigle on what we can do as a community to reach marriage equality.

New Hampshire will become the sixth state in the U.S. to offer marriage equality to all couples. After many revisions to increase protections for religious institutions, Governor John Lynch signs the gay marriage bill into law.

Another step forward for LGBT equality!

For more visit: The New Civil Rights Movement

The California Supreme Court has announced their decision to uphold Prop 8 but honors 18,000+ marriages.

We will continue to make our voices heard until we reach Equality. The fight does not end here - we will achieve equality.

Visit National Center For Lesbian Rights to learn more about today’s decision - “United We Mourn, United We Stand”

Helping LGBT Individuals and Couples Protect Themselves With Affordable, Efficient Online Legal Document Preparation

ATLANTA (March 26 2009) - No one likes to think about times of personal crisis such as illness, accidents, or even death. But such planning is essential for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals and couples, whose basic civil rights, depending on state legislation, can be severely restricted.

Now, LGBT individuals and couples can protect themselves, their relationships, and their property, thanks to LegalOut, an online legal resource center that officially launched today. Founded by Atlanta entrepreneur Lindalisa Severo and powered by Rocket Lawyer – a top online legal assistance solutions firm that has been helping consumers with computerized legal documents for more than 10 years – LegalOut provides essential, affordable legal documents in a simple, easy-to-follow online format.

For a segment of society that continues to fight for the same basic civil rights that millions of Americans enjoy, taking the steps to protect oneself is even more critical, Severo says. “Can you imagine being in the hospital after an accident, and your partner couldn’t even visit you because your state doesn’t recognize partners as family members?” Severo points out. “This is all about giving people in the LGBT community the power to take control over their critical life decisions.”

Charley Moore, founder of RocketLawyer.com, said “Starting today, LGBT citizens can easily and affordably access the specific legal documents they need to protect themselves and their loved ones.  Rocket Lawyer is proud to be working with LegalOut on this important and much needed innovation in LGBT legal services.”

LegalOut’s customized documents were developed by qualified attorneys for the specific needs of the LGBT community. Unlike “boilerplate” legal documents offered by many websites, LegalOut’s offerings reflect the specific concerns and needs of the LGBT community and are designed to protect their rights. Documents include estate planning, living wills, domestic partnerships, financial and healthcare power of attorney, co-parenting agreements, and many others.

LegalOut provides a user-friendly site and online tools to help individuals confidently prepare for their future, according to Lauren Mross, LegalOut’s vice president of user experience. Mross brings over a decade of user-focused Web and interactive design experience to the LegalOut team. “With documents like living wills and power of attorney, there’s a fear factor involved for many people, and therefore they put off taking care of these necessities,” Mross says. “We wanted to take that apprehension away by creating a site based on simple navigation and easy-to-use formats, and backing all of it up with Rocket Lawyer’s proven legal expertise.”

In addition, LegalOut provides information and resources to keep members informed, empowered, and protected – connecting LGBT individuals, families and business operators with lawyers who understand the unique needs of the LGBT community and providing the best LGBT legal community links on the web.

For more information, contact info@legalout.com or visit www.LegalOut.com. You can also check out LegalOut’s latest news and happenings through Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

LegalOut is one step closer to launching. The LegalOut team is hard at work testing our online legal document preparation tools.

We are dedicated to helping members of the LGBT community prepare essential legal documents to secure their wishes. Our documents will include estate planning, living wills, domestic partnerships, financial and healthcare power of attorney, co-parenting agreements, and many others.

Along with our legal document preparation tools, LegalOut will feature a network of LGBT-friendly attorneys, for the times when you do need the assistance of an attorney.

Follow our progress on Twitter or sign up for our newsletter alert.

LegalOut is working on the final phase of implementing our legal document preparation tool that will assist you in preparing essential legal documents through a simple, easy-to-follow online format.

If you would like to be notified when LegalOut officially launches, please sign up for our newsletter alert. LegalOut respects your privacy and will not share your information with anybody.

LegalOut looks forward to providing the LGBT community with easy-to