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Lambda Legal Says House Bill That Would Block Gay Americans Out of the Justice System Is 'Patently Unconstitutional'

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"This is an unprecedented and unwarranted attack on the most basic principles established by our nation's founders," Lambda Legal's Kevin Cathcart says
July 21, 2004

(New York, Wednesday, July 21, 2004) - Lambda Legal said today that legislation the U.S. House of Representatives is set to vote on Thursday is unconstitutional, since it singles out lesbian and gay Americans to block them out of the country’s justice system.


The legislation, H.R. 3313, was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee last week and is scheduled for a vote in the full House on Thursday. It would prevent any federal court from hearing cross-state recognition challenges to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.

“In attacking both gay people and the historic role of courts, this bill clearly violates our Constitution and will never be allowed to stand. This entire debate is an obvious political ploy to continue trying to use gay couples’ lives as political fodder,” said Kevin Cathcart, Executive Director of Lambda Legal, the nation’s largest and oldest legal organization for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV.

“Day in and day out, we argue on behalf of gay Americans in courts all across the country. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose - but we always have our day in court like anyone else, because that’s how our nation’s centuries-old system of government works,” Cathcart said. “This bill is an unprecedented and unwarranted attack on the most basic principles established by our nation’s founders. The right wing’s efforts to rewrite the Constitution failed earlier this month, so now they’re trying to undermine our government’s system of checks and balances and disenfranchise gay couples who aren’t a threat to anyone else.”

While hopeful that the bill will not pass when the House votes Thursday, Cathcart said that if it were to pass both houses of Congress and be signed into law it would be struck down, pointing to last year’s landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that Lambda Legal argued. “Just 13 months ago, I sat in the U.S. Supreme Court when the justices delivered their ruling striking down an antigay law in Texas. The Court made clear that laws cannot single out gay people to treat us as second-class citizens,” Cathcart said. “This bill tries to do exactly what the U.S. Supreme Court has just rejected - and if it ever passes, it will take its place alongside the now-dead Texas law in the dustbin of discriminatory attempts to treat gay people as second-class citizens.”

Contact: Eric Ferrero, 212-809-8585 X 227 Lisa Hardaway,212-809-8585 X 266 ###

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