Press Releases

(Anne Arundel County, MD November 16, 2011)—Lambda Legal announced today that Stacy Pipkin, an administrator with Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS), will receive employment benefits for her same-sex spouse, following a Lambda Legal complaint on her behalf with the Maryland Commission on Human Relations and policy change from AACPS.

(New York, October 12, 2011)—Frank Kameny, Harvard-trained astronomer, Army veteran, and lifelong advocate for LGBT equality, died yesterday at 86. Fired from his federal job simply for being gay, Kameny argued what is believed to be the first civil rights claim in a U.S. court based on sexual orientation.

Jon Davidson, Legal Director at Lambda Legal, issued the following statement regarding today's decision by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacating an earlier U.S. District Court ruling declaring "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) unconstitutional.

Lawyers for the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the U.S. House of Representatives (BLAG) informed U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White that they "prefer not" to participate in a pilot project to video-tape oral arguments at an October 21, 2011 hearing in Golinski v OPM, a federal challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

(Fort Worth, TX, September 7, 2011) – Lambda Legal today filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas claiming Tarrant County College officials violated the U.S. Constitution by preventing a qualified candidate from interviewing for full-time teaching positions because of their belief that she is a lesbian.

Lambda Legal completed briefing in its appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of a 39-year-old man who applied to be a police officer with the Atlanta Police Department (APD), but was denied employment because of his HIV status.

(San Francisco, September 6, 2011)—The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld an injunction that temporarily maintains family health coverage for gay and lesbian employees of the State of Arizona until a court issues a final decision in the case.

In response to the news that the President has transmitted to Congress certification from the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and himself that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" may be repealed without adverse consequences to the military, Lambda Legal issued the following statement from Jon Davidson Legal Director for Lambda Legal

Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the stay on the injunction issued by the district court in the Log Cabin Republicans' challenge to "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT). The government is once again enjoined from enforcing DADT anywhere in the world. The government was enjoined once before for eight days, before a different set of Ninth Circuit judges issued the stay of the injunction in this case.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a brief strongly arguing that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional in a case brought by Lambda Legal and Morrison & Foerster LLP on behalf of Karen Golinski, a lesbian federal court employee denied medical coverage for her wife, whom she married when same-sex couples could do so in California. The DOJ had previously announced they would no longer defend DOMA, but this is the first legal filing in the country in which they have fully argued to a court that DOMA is unconstitutional. They asked the federal court not to dismiss Golinski's claim.