Press Releases

Today Lambda Legal's Director of Constitutional Litigation, Susan Sommer, will testify before the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee in support of Senate Bill 116, the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, which would allow same-sex couples to marry.

The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene issued a letter to state birth registrars announcing a procedure change allowing a woman to be named as a parent on the Maryland birth certificate of the child born to her same-sex married spouse, without the necessity of a court order. Lambda Legal applauds this advance for Maryland children.

The state of Arizona has no valid reason for placing its lesbian and gay employees on a lower pay scale than heterosexuals, Lambda Legal today told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The oral arguments were part of a case to block a law stripping domestic partner benefits from gay and lesbian state employees.

(San Francisco, February 16, 2011) — Today the California Supreme Court agreed to answer a question by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on whether or not supporters of a California ballot measure can continue litigation about that measure’s constitutionality when state officials decide against doing so. A three-judge panel of the U.S.

A federal judge has requested the U.S. Department of Justice to explain how it plans to defend denying spousal health benefits to a lesbian federal employee, following an announcement yesterday by the Obama administration that it believes the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White has given government attorneys until Monday, February 28, to respond.

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, the Maryland House re-committed back to committee the marriage equality bill that had previously been approved by the Senate, delaying equality to Maryland's same-sex couples.

(San Francisco, March 16, 2011)—A federal judge has granted a motion by government attorneys to dismiss Lambda Legal's lawsuit on behalf of a federal court employee seeking spousal health benefits for her wife, but invited the organization to file an amended complaint directly challenging the constitutionality of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.

In response to today's introduction in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives of the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the 1996 so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Lambda Legal National Marriage Project Director Jennifer C. Pizer issued the following statement.

(Chicago, March 23, 2011)—In response to the news that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has terminated legal firm Cullen, Weston, Pines & Bach in the case Appling v. Doyle, Lambda Legal issued the following statement from Christopher Clark, Senior Staff Attorney in the Midwest Regional Office in Chicago: