Press Releases

(Chicago, IL, December 23, 2011) – Lambda Legal mourns the passing of John Geddes Lawrence, a co-defendant in Lawrence v. Texas, the monumental 2003 Lambda Legal case that overturned all remaining U.S. sodomy laws. Lawrence died on November 20th in Texas.

  (San Francisco, November 17, 2011)—The California Supreme Court today ruled that the proponents of Proposition 8 have an adequate interest under California law to defend the constitutionality of such an initiative when public officials decline to appeal a judgment invalidating it. Lambda Legal issued the following statement from Legal Director Jon Davidson:

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.

(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).

(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.

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.

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.

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