Press Releases

The nation's leading child welfare organizations have joined family law and constitutional scholars in support of Lambda Legal's petition for a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of a same-sex couple seeking an accurate birth certificate for their Louisiana-born son whom they adopted in New York. The state of Louisiana has refused to issue a birth certificate listing both fathers as the boy's parents.

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.

Lambda Legal and Morrison & Foerster LLP today told a federal judge that government attorneys have shown they have no further arguments and therefore no further legal barrier exists to a married lesbian federal employee receiving spousal health benefits already provided to her heterosexual co-workers. U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys had argued that, among other reasons, the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) prohibits the employer-provided medical insurance that Karen Golinski had requested for her spouse, Amy Cunninghis. Lambda Legal and Morrison & Foerster represent Golinski, a 19-year-employee of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Today Lambda Legal and Morrison & Foerster LLP filed an amended complaint challenging the constitutionality of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in its case representing Karen Golinski, a federal court employee denied spousal health benefits for her wife.

(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.

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.

Today the full U.S Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in a case regarding the New York adoption of a Louisiana-born baby boy by a same-sex couple after the state of Louisiana denied the child an accurate birth certificate reflecting both of his parents.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled today that being gay doesn't disqualify a judge from ruling impartially on a case involving rights that impact lesbian, gay and bisexual people.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit today upheld the right of transgender people to receive medical care while they are incarcerated. The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Wisconsin and Lambda Legal had challenged a Wisconsin law that prohibited prison doctors from prescribing hormone treatment or sex reassignment surgery to transgender inmates.

Today, the White House announced that former Lambda Legal client Janice Langbehn will be one of 13 recipients of the 2011 Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation's second-highest civilian honor.