RBGG founding partner Sanford Jay Rosen published his latest blog post on Huffington Post this week: ‘With Liberty and Justice for All’: Gays Are People Too, Entitled to All the Rights, Privileges and Obligations Enjoyed by Straight People. Opening paragraphs of the piece are set out below:
“By Summer 2013 the Supreme Court will render two decisions that may affect profoundly gay people’s equality, freedom to choose, and right to participate fully in many of the joys, rights and responsibilities of personhood. The Court may decide whether the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the U.S. Constitution in prohibiting federal government recognition of same-sex marriages that are sanctioned by states. It may also decide whether California’s Proposition 8 violates the Constitution because it discriminates against lesbians and gays by prohibiting same-sex marriage.
This year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit may decide whether a California law that prohibits providing sexual reorientation therapy to minors violates some minors and therapists’ federal constitutional rights. Those cases will be argued on April 17th, almost surely to a packed courtroom, just as the Proposition 8 and DOMA cases were argued in March to packed courtroom.
My colleagues and I have filed friend of the court briefs in all of these cases on behalf of several gay men who undertook sexual reorientation therapy as minors and the sister of a gay man who was inflicted with such therapy and later committed suicide. Our briefs tell their powerful and compelling stories. These briefs are all available on our law firm website www.rbgg.com.
Preparing these briefs and reading the transcripts of the oral arguments in the Proposition 8 and DOMA cases caused me to dwell on America’s evolution concerning the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. (“LGBT people”) In this essay, I weave a sometimes personal history that reveals the commonality of all group discrimination and the movements and forces that have worked during my lifetime to end such invidious discrimination, and to assure full “liberty and justice for all.”
Full post here.