NCLR represents Kathy Reynolds and Dawn McKinley, a same-sex couple who are members of the Cherokee Nation. In May 2004, Reynolds and McKinley obtained a marriage certificate from the Cherokee Nation and married shortly thereafter. The next month, another member of the Cherokee Nation filed a petition seeking to invalidate Reynolds and McKinley’s marriage. NCLR successfully defended Reynolds and McKinley before the Cherokee high court. Two days later, various members of the Cherokee...
Tag
freedom to marry
As was widely expected, the Supreme Court today declined to take any action on three important cases involving the rights of same-sex couples, including the challenge to California’ Proposition 8 and one of several challenges to the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). (See my Huffington Post blog post for a preview of the Court’s LGBTQ cases this term.) At this point, we still do not have any information about whether the Court will take any of these cases, or whether it will let the...
By Liz Seaton NCLR State Policy Director I head over to Annapolis, MD today to testify in favor of marriage equality in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. A little history and perspective on Maryland, where I live, and our struggle here for the freedom marry. I first testified in favor of a marriage equality bill in the Maryland State House in 1999, when progressive state legislators introduced a proactive marriage bill to counter a proposed state DOMA bill. With losses on DOMAs in so...
Groups call Prop 8 Supporters’ Assault on Impartiality of Gay and Lesbian Judges “Offensive” (San Francisco, CA, May 13, 2011)—A coalition of groups that advocate for the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people today filed a brief urging the U.S. District Court not to vacate last year’s historic ruling invalidating Proposition 8. Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the ACLU of Northern California and Equality California filed the...
Groups Argue that Proposition 8 Sponsors Do Not Speak for the State (San Francisco, CA, May 4, 2011)—Yesterday, Equality California, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the court brief with the California Supreme Court arguing that the proponents of Proposition 8 have no power to override the decision of elected state officials about whether to appeal a federal court decision that Prop 8 is unconstitutional. The brief explains that initiative proponents...
(San Francisco, CA, March 1, 2011)—Today, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Equality California, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, and Lambda Legal jointly filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asking the court to lift the temporary stay in the federal court challenge to Proposition 8. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Prop 8 was unconstitutional in August 2010. However, that same month the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a...
Statement by NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell (San Francisco, CA, February 16, 2011)—Today, the California Supreme Court agreed to accept the question sent to it last month from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the federal court challenge to California’s Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that stripped the freedom to marry from same-sex couples in the state. On January 4, 2011, the Ninth Circuit panel asked California’s highest court to clarify whether California law gives ballot...
Statement by NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell (San Francisco, CA, January 18, 2011)—Today, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a decision by the District of Columbia’s highest court that an initiative taking away the right to marry from same-sex couples cannot go on the ballot. Today’s ruling puts an end to the legal battle to secure marriage equality in our nation’s capital. In December 2009, the D.C. Council passed the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Act of...
Statement by NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell (San Francisco, CA, January 05, 2011)—New Mexico Attorney Gary King released an opinion on January 4, 2011 concluding that marriages between same-sex couples validly entered in other states or countries would be honored in New Mexico. New Mexico law generally provides that the state will recognize valid out-of-state marriages, even if the marriage would not have been permitted under New Mexico’s own marriage laws. The Attorneys General of...
Statement by NCLR Executive Director Kate Kendell (San Francisco, CA, January 04, 2011)—Today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Imperial County’s attempt to intervene in the federal court challenge to Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that stripped the freedom to marry from same-sex couples in California. The Ninth Circuit also asked the California Supreme Court to clarify whether the group that placed Prop 8 on the ballot has a legal right to appeal Judge Walker’s decision that...
