GLAD Sues Walmart Over Spousal Benefits

Via press release:

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs (WLC) have filed a class action lawsuit against Walmart, charging the retail giant with discriminating against employees who were married to same-sex spouses by denying their spouses health insurance benefits. The Complaint was filed this morning in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and can be read here.

The lawsuit, Jacqueline Cote, et al. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the first class action filed on behalf of gay workers since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, and alleges that Walmart violated Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act by discriminating against Jaqueline Cote based on her sex. The action seeks to demonstrate how existing federal law can be used to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) workers.

The class representative, Jacqueline (Jackie) Cote, works in Walmart's Swansea, MA store, and was denied spousal health insurance for her wife, Diana (Dee) Smithson. Dee has battled ovarian cancer since 2012. Due to Walmart's sex discrimination, Dee lacked health insurance to pay for her treatment and has racked up a minimum of $150,000 in uninsured medical expenses.

The couple has been together for 33 years.

GLAD: From Goodridge To Obergefell

Important history from GLAD:

"On April 28, 2015, Mary Bonauto will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court for the freedom to marry for all same-sex couples nationwide. In 2001 Mary and Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) filed the case that first brought marriage equality to the U.S. - with the landmark 2003 Goodridge v. Department of Public Health decision in Massachusetts. This is the story of that historic victory, and how far we've come on marriage equality to get us where we are today. Featuring two of the couples who fought to marry in Goodridge, Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall, Evan Wolfson, Mary Bonauto and more."

Who Will Argue For Us At SCOTUS?

As the date for oral arguments before SCOTUS draws closer, LGBT groups have been jockeying for position. Chris Geidner reports on yesterday's developments at Buzzfeed:

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the six cases out of four states before the Supreme Court asked the justices to split the April 28 arguments, which will include 90 minutes focused on whether states can ban same-sex couples from marrying and 60 minutes focused on whether states can refuse to recognize same-sex couples’ marriages, between four lawyers.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers have asked the court to split the marriage question between the Michigan and Kentucky teams and to split the marriage recognition question between the Ohio and Tennessee teams. The letter did not, however, announce who would be arguing in each spot.

What’s more, those four as-of-yet unnamed lawyers support the request of Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. to also argue in support of marriage equality — meaning a total of five lawyers, each with 15 minutes, likely will appear at the podium to present arguments in support of marriage and marriage recognition.

On the other side of the arguments, the situation is much more simple. On the marriage question, the Michigan Attorney General’s Office has announced that the state’s former solicitor general, John Bursch, will be arguing in defense of state bans on same-sex couples’ marriages. Joe Whalen, the associate solicitor general in the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office, will argue in defense of the recognition bans.

Hit the link for the full responses from both sides.

ARKANSAS: LGBT Groups Issue Last Minute Veto Plea To Governor

Two weeks ago the Arkansas legislature approved a bill that would ban any municipality from enacting LGBT anti-discrimination ordinances. Without a veto from Gov. Asa Hutchinson, that law goes into effect tomorrow. Yesterday Lambda Legal, the ACLU, GLAD, and the NCLR issued a last-minute plea to Hutchinson.

SB 202 was passed to thwart cities like Fayetteville and Eureka Springs that recently have enacted sexual orientation and gender identity nondiscrimination protections. So if Governor Hutchinson allows this bill to take effect, it will amount to a giant, flashing “Gays Stay Away” sign. It will block sincere local efforts to show that Arkansas communities are welcoming places beckoning talent, innovation and workforce diversity. It will do precisely what Arizona’s Governor Brewer decided to avoid last year when she vetoed that state’s “discrimination as religion” bill.

Recalling Colorado's fatally flawed Amendment 2, which years ago explicitly targeted lesbians, gay men and bisexuals (and not heterosexuals), many are asking whether SB 202 is a similarly unconstitutional denial of equal protection. When the Supreme Court struck down Amendment 2 in Romer v. Evans, it underscored that the case record revealed anti-gay "animus" propelling the popular vote and no legitimate government reasons for precluding local nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people, and for no one else.

It is that manifest and dangerously discriminatory purpose that causes so many to call out the equal protection problem at the heart of SB 202. Every lawmaker who voted for this bill has taken an oath to uphold both the Arkansas Constitution and the United States Constitution. Both charters contain equal protection guarantees. Governor Hutchinson has taken that oath as well. He also has pledged to shepherd the State's economy. We call on him to honor both commitments by vetoing SB 202.

Michigan And Kentucky Plaintiffs Petition SCOTUS For Review Of Marriage Cases

This afternoon the plaintiffs in the Michigan and Kentucky marriage equality cases both filed petitions with the Supreme Court which request a review of the Sixth Circuit Court decision that upheld the bans in their states. Late last week plaintiffs in the Ohio and Tennessee cases filed their petitions. Hit the above links to read the petitions. GOP Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is working to invalidate the 300+ marriages that took place in the brief period between the ruling there and the stay. (Via Equality Case Files)

BREAKING: Supreme Court Lists ALL Marriage Cases For Consideration On 9/29

Via the Wall Street Journal:

Mark your calendars: the Supreme Court is scheduled to consider its next steps on gay marriage when the justices meet for the first time since their summer break. The court on Wednesday listed gay marriage petitions from five states – Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin – for consideration at its Sept. 29 private conference. Officials in those states are asking the court to decide whether state bans on same-sex marriage are constitutional. The justices use the September meeting to wade through stacks of appeals that pile up during the court’s three-month recess. The court at some point after the conference is expected to add several of those cases to its docket for the term that begins Oct. 6. Court watchers are eagerly awaiting word on whether one or more gay marriages cases will be among them. The court is under no obligation to act right away. It’s possible the court could take additional time to mull its options, particularly because of fast-moving developments in other gay-marriage litigation.

More from USA Today:

By scheduling all for consideration simultaneously, the justices gave equal footing to the Indiana and Wisconsin cases just decided last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. The 10th and 4th Circuits previously ruled in the other cases. The court could agree to hear one or more cases this winter; deny them all, or delay its decision for a while. In all five states, federal district and appellate judges have agreed that state bans on same-sex marriage should be struck down as unconstitutional. But those decisions are on hold pending the Supreme Court's review. Additional gay marriage cases could be added to the justices' list soon. A ruling is expected from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit on cases from Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee. And just this week, the 9th Circuit heard oral arguments in cases stemming from Idaho and Nevada. Cases from Texas and Florida remain at the appellate court level.

AFER reacts via press release:

“Gay and lesbian couples in Virginia should not have to wait another day to enjoy their right to marry,” said AFER Executive Director, Adam Umhoefer. “The distribution of our case for the Court’s consideration brings us one step closer to our mission of marriage equality for all Americans. Our Constitution’s guarantee of liberty and equality soon will be realized for all loving and committed couples, no matter what state they reside in.” The Court is expected to release an Orders List on October 6, 2014, that will indicate which – if any – marriage equality case or cases it will consider for its 2014-2015 term. If the Court denies review in Bostic, the July 2014 decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that struck down Virginia’s marriage ban will be binding and gay and lesbian Virginians will be able to marry in the Commonwealth.

NCLR reacts via press release:

The couples in the [Utah] case—Kitchen v. Herbert—are represented by Peggy Tomsic of the Salt Lake City law firm of Magleby & Greenwood, P.C., Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), Mary Bonauto of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), and former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal of the law firm of Hogan Lovells. Said Tomsic: “The State of Utah and the plaintiff couples agree that it is important the Supreme Court take this case and settle the constitutional questions at stake, questions that matter so much to the families we represent and to so many others across the country.” Said Bonauto: “It is time to end the legal bans that keep committed couples from standing up and making the unique pledges of marriage to each other—pledges that would allow their families protection and security everywhere in this country.”

MISSOURI: LGBT Groups Stand With Family Of Teen Killed By Cop

A coalition of 17 national LGBT and civil rights groups have issued a joint letter in support of the family of Missouri teenager Michael Brown, whose killing by a police officer has inflamed racial tensions and prompted a national outcry.

Among the groups signing the letter are the ACLU, HRC, GLAD, GLAAD, GMHC, NGLTF, PFLAG, and the Trevor Project.

Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner On ENDA

Yesterday several major LGBT groups including the ACLU, the NGLTF, and Lambda Legal announced that they no longer support ENDA due to its broad religious exemptions. Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner has published a lengthy look at the ENDA battle and concludes his analysis with three reasons for the sudden change of heart. The final reason:

The White House is preparing an executive order for Obama to sign that will bar federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity — and LGBT groups want to make it perfectly clear to Obama and others that ENDA’s religious exemption would be unacceptable to them. With last week’s letter signed by Rick Warren and others and draft letter circulated by Jim Wallis seeking a strong religious exemption — similar to the ENDA religious exemption — in the executive order, LGBT groups and allies are trying to move quickly and forcefully to push the counterargument.

On Tuesday, two letters were sent to the White House — one from the heads of statewide LGBT groups and another from progressive religious leaders — pressing the White House to include no more broad of a religious exemption in the executive order than that given with regard to other classes in other anti-discrimination measures. For the organizations withdrawing their support from ENDA, they are talking about the religious exemption contained in ENDA — but they also are sending a message that such an exemption would clearly not be acceptable to them in the executive order.

Read the full article.

NOTE: The Human Rights Campaign appears to be standing alone behind ENDA. Yesterday they issued a brief statement: "HRC supports ENDA because it will provide essential workplace protections to millions of LGBT people."

ACLU Retracts ENDA Support

This afternoon the ACLU joined a growing list of civil rights group that have dropped their support for ENDA due to its gaping religious exemptions. Via press release:

The provision in the current version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that allows religious organizations to discriminate based on sexual orientation and gender identity has long been a source of significant concern to us. Given the types of workplace discrimination we see increasingly against LGBT people, together with the calls for greater permission to discriminate on religious grounds that followed immediately upon the Supreme Court’s decision last week in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, it has become clear that the inclusion of this provision is no longer tenable. It would prevent ENDA from providing protections that LGBT people desperately need and would make very bad law with potential further negative effects. Therefore, we are announcing our withdrawal of support for the current version of ENDA. For decades, our organizations have challenged anti-LGBT workplace discrimination in the courts and worked for the passage of inclusive non-discrimination laws at the local, state, and federal level. We do this work because of the devastating toll workplace discrimination has had, and continues to have, on the lives of LGBT people. It is unacceptable that in the year 2014, men and women are forced to hide who they are or whom they love when they go to work.

Co-signing the above statement are Lambda Legal, GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders), the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Transgender Law Center. Earlier today the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force also dropped their support for ENDA.

Years and years of hard-fought battles resulted in the Senate passage of ENDA in November 2013 by a vote of 64-32. I exulted in that moment, truly. But no hope of the bill progressing in the GOP-dominated House coupled with the Hobby Lobby ruling means that the entire LGBT rights movement must now focus on having LGBT Americans included under the broad protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Some are loudly arguing that LGBT opposition to ENDA is yet another case of the perfect being the enemy of the good, a cry that was also made when many of us objected after transgender protections were stripped from the 2007 version of ENDA. But as some of you have pointed out, exempting the very people most likely to discriminate from an anti-discrimination bill just does not make sense in the post-Hobby Lobby world.

It's time for all of us to adopt and adapt the slogan of Idaho's activists, who demand that "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" be added to their state's human rights act.

"Add The Four Words" - to the Civil Rights Act Of 1964.

November 18th: 10 Years Of MA Marriage

Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders writes:

A look at the historic November 18, 2003 ruling in GLAD's case Goodridge v. DPH which made Massachusetts the first state in the U.S. where same-sex couples could marry. The video celebrates the powerful and beautiful decision authored by then Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall, and explores the impact the ruling has had in the national movement for LGBT equality. Featuring interviews with the Chief Justice, GLAD Attorney and Goodridge lead counsel Mary L. Bonauto and plaintiffs David Wilson and Robert Compton, as well as Former Congressman Barney Frank, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, MA Reps Byron Rushing and Carl Sciortino, MA Attorney General Martha Coakley, Bishop Gene Robinson, Evan Wolfson and Professor Laurence H. Tribe

LGBT Rights Groups Denounce Supreme Court's Ruling On Voting Rights Act

LGBT Rights Coalition

We, America’s leading LGBT advocacy organizations, join civil rights organizations – and indeed, all Americans whom this law has served to protect – in expressing acute dismay at today’s ruling. Not only had Congress repeatedly reaffirmed the need for this bedrock civil rights protection, but authoritative voices from across America had filed amicus briefs urging the court not to undermine the law: the NAACP; the American Bar Association; the Navajo Nation; the states of New York, California, Mississippi and North Carolina; numerous former Justice Department officials charged with protecting voting rights; dozens of U.S. senators and representatives; and many others.

These varied and powerful voices attest to the self-evident reality that racial protections are still needed in voting in this country. As recently as last year’s elections, political partisans resorted to voter suppression laws and tactics aimed at reducing the votes of people of color.  Voting rights protections, which have long served our nation’s commitment to equality and justice, should not be cast aside now. The court has done America a grave disservice, and we will work with our coalition partners to undo the damage inflicted by this retrogressive ruling.

The above was co-signed by Lambda Legal, Freedom To Marry, National Center for Lesbian Rights, HRC, Pride At Work, GMHC, GLAD, National Black Justice Coalition, Family Equality Council, The Task Force, PFLAG, and several others.

LGBT Groups React To DOMA Day

GLAD

For every day DOMA continues to be enforced by our federal government, thousands of legally married same-sex couples are denied critical protections. DOMA is a blatantly discriminatory law which targets a particularly disliked group, impacts important personal interests, and represents a one-time departure from the usual process of allocating federal rights and benefits. Same-sex couples who are legally married in their home states should be treated like all other married couples in this nation – with respect and dignity. I am confident this case got a fair hearing today in our nation’s highest court. This day has been long in the making, and the question is not if, but when, this discriminatory law will be overturned.

Lambda Legal

Edie Windsor had her day in court and bravely stood not only for herself, but for all lesbian and gay couples treated unequally by their government," Taylor added. "As we argued in our friend-of-the-court brief, DOMA heaps upon married same-sex couples disadvantages that defy credible connection to any legitimate governmental purpose. President Obama knows it and refuses to defend DOMA in court. Former President Clinton, who signed DOMA into law, knows it. And now I believe the justices of the Supreme Court have persuasive grounds to affirm the Second Circuit's decision. Today spells doomsday for DOMA. We congratulate our colleagues at the ACLU and the law firm Paul Weiss on a great day at the Supreme Court.

National Center For Lesbian Rights

Shannon Minter, Legal Director: I think we're going to win. I think the court is going to reach the merits on this case and I think they're going to say that DOMA violates the federal constitution, probably for equal protection reasons. I do think DOMA is dead.

I'll add more reactions to this post as they come in.

50 More Prop 8 Briefs Filed

Another 50 Supreme Court briefs have been filed in support of the overturn of Proposition 8.  Many of the briefs have multiple sponsors, so I'll just pull out a few of the names from the list compiled by the press office of San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera.

National Women's Law Center
Williams Institute
Gay & Lesbian Medical Association
Lambda Legal
National Center for Lesbian Rights
California Medical Association
American Medical Association
American Sociological Association
American Psychiatric Association
American Academy of Pediatrics
Equality California
Anti-Defamation League
American Jewish Committee
United Church of Christ
Metropolitan Community Church
Survivors of Sexual Orientation Change Therapies
Family Equality Council
GLSEN
GLAD

Many more names and the full briefs are at the link.

Lesbian Super-PAC Backs Maine Marriage

SCOTUS Gets Fourth DOMA Challenge

The Supreme Court has been asked for the fourth time to uphold a lower court's ruling to overturn DOMA. Chris Geidner reports:

Today's filing by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, called a petition for a writ of certiorari, asks the Supreme Court to consider the appeal of a case it won at the trial court level on behalf of Joanne Pedersen and several others impacted by DOMA's definition of "marriage" and "spouse" as being limited only to marriages between one man and one woman.

In their case, a federal trial-court judge in Connecticut decided in July "that no conceivable rational basis exists" for DOMA's federal definition of marriage. GLAD had argued successfully that DOMA, which prevents legally married same-sex couples from receiving federal recognition of those marriages, "violates the equal protection principles" guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

Geidner notes that like two of the other DOMA cases presented to the Supreme Court for consideration, the above case has not been considered by a federal appeals court. GLAD is taking it right from the state level to the top.

Yet Another Court Strikes Down DOMA

Via press release from GLAD:

Today, a U.S. District Court Judge ruled that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional as a violation of equal protection guarantees. Her ruling comes with respect to claims brought by six married same-sex couples and one widower from the states of Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont who were denied federal tax, social security, pension and family medical leave protections only because they are (or were) married to someone of the same sex. Under the ruling, the plaintiffs’ marriages must be accorded the same federal protections and responsibilities as those of other married couples. The ruling by Judge Vanessa L. Bryant, an appointee of President George W. Bush, stems from the lawsuit Pedersen et al v. Office of Personnel Management et al, filed by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) in November 2010 in the Federal District Court in Connecticut.

“Section 3 of DOMA obligates the federal government to single out a certain category of marriages as excluded from federal recognition,” Judge Bryant wrote, “thereby resulting in an inconsistent distribution of federal marriage benefits as all marriages authorized by certain states will receive recognition and marital benefits, whereas only a portion of marriages authorized by other states will receive federal recognition and benefits.” “Judge Bryant’s ruling is very clear: married people are married and should be treated as such by the federal government. There is no legitimate basis for DOMA’s broad disrespect of the marriages of same-sex couples,” said Mary L. Bonauto, GLAD’s Civil Rights Project Director. “We are very pleased that the Court recognized that DOMA’s creation of second-class marriages harms our clients who simply seek the same opportunities to care and provide for each other and for their children that other families enjoy.”

Massachusetts Supreme Court Rules: Civil Unions Must Be Treated As Marriages

Interestingly, the ruling came about via a bigamy-tinged case. Via press release from GLAD:

The ruling came in the case Elia-Warnken v. Elia. Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) represented Richard Elia, who obtained a license to marry Todd Warnkenin October 2005. Mr. Elia did not know at the time that Mr. Warnken was in a civil union with another person, which they had entered into in Vermont in April 2003. Mr. Warnken and Mr. Elia lived together as spouses until December 2008, and Mr. Warnken filed for divorce in April 2009. Upon learning that Mr. Warnken had never dissolved his pre-existing civil union, Mr. Elia filed a motion to dismiss the divorce complaint, arguing that because of the civil union their marriage was never valid and therefore there was nothing to dissolve. The SJC agreed. “[R]efusing to recognize a civil union would be inconsistent with the core legal and public policy concerns articulated in Goodridge ... protection and furtherance of the rights of same-sex couples.”

Federal Judge Denies House GOP's Motion To Stop Proceedings In DOMA Case

Just in via press release from GLAD:

On July 4, Judge Vanessa L. Bryant of the U.S. District Court of Connecticut, denied the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group’s (BLAG) motion to stay the proceedings in Pedersen v. Office of Personnel Management, the challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) now pending in federal court in the District of Connecticut. Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), which is representing the plaintiffs, strongly opposed the motion for a stay. In denying BLAG’s motion that the pending appeal in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the Windsor case made her ruling unnecessary, Judge Bryant cited potential harm to the Pedersen plaintiffs if the proceedings were halted. “The Court finds that the harm which would befall the Plaintiffs if a stay were to be entered is significant,” she wrote. “Entering a stay in this matter would essentially deny the Plaintiffs the right to advocate for their own interests, asking them instead to ‘stand aside while a litigant in another [case] settles the rule of law that will define the rights of both [parties].’”

Last week both the House GOP and the Department of Justice requested Supreme Court review of the case.

Canada: We Take It Back

After worldwide outrage poured into Ottawa, the Canadian federal government is backtracking on the invalidity of gay marriages by foreign visitors. Things aren't quite settled, however.

The federal government will consider changing the law to ensure non-residents married in Canada can obtain divorces, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said Thursday afternoon. Wading into a controversy that has quickly blown into an international cause célèbre, Mr. Nicholson made assurances the government “has no intention of reopening the debate on the definition of marriage.” [snip] Mr. Nicholson's statement gave immediate hope to married same-sex couples who are seeking a divorce but appeared to have no prospect of obtaining a one in Canada. However, it left one central question unanswered: Does the government consider their marriages to be legal, or not?

Lambda Legal, Freedom To Marry, the ACLU, and GLAD have issued a joint statement.

No one’s marriage has been invalidated or is likely to be invalidated. The position taken by one government lawyer in a divorce is not itself precedential. No court has accepted this view and there is no reason to believe that either Canada’s courts or its Parliament would agree with this position, which no one has asserted before during the eight years that same-sex couples have had the freedom to marry in Canada. [snip] The message for same-sex couples married in Canada remains the same as it is for same-sex couples validly married here in the United States: take every precaution you can to protect your relationship with legal documents such as powers of attorney and adoptions, as you may travel to jurisdictions that don't respect your legal relationship. There is no reason to suggest that Canadian marriages of same-sex couples are in jeopardy, or to advocate that people try to marry again elsewhere, as that could cause these couples unnecessary complications, anxiety, and expense.

Sorry about that, American Family Association. Snork!

APPEALS COURT: 70 Corporations & Others File Brief In Support Of DOMA Suit

Filed in the First Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Massachusetts' DOMA suit against the federal government. View the entire list, which also includes trade groups, employee associations, and civic organizations. (Via - GLAD)