Under U.S. v. Windsor, Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and we are left with no broadly applicable federal statutory definition of marriage. What we have are 13 states and the District of Columbia, which now grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and several other countries (including neighboring Canada) in which such licenses are also available. At this point, there are thousands of same-sex couples living in the United States who … <Read More>
Legal Issues
Sears Roebuck Loses Summary Judgment Motion in Sexual Orientation Hostile Environment Case
N.Y. Supreme Court Justice Debra James has rejected a motion for summary judgment by Sears Roebuck on a claim that a gay former employee at Sears’ Auto Center in Nanuet, N.Y., was subjected to a hostile working environment in violation of New York State’s Human Rights Law, which forbids employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. However, Justice James’ June 28 decision granted Sears’ motion to reject Joseph DeVito’s retaliation claim stemming from a promotion he … <Read More>
11th Circuit Revives Gay Ukrainian’s U.S. Asylum Claim
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled on July 8 that Oleksiy Okhremenko, a gay man from Ukraine, is entitled to reconsideration of his petition for asylum in the United States. After criticizing in detail the credibility findings of an Immigration Judge, who had discounted Okhremenko’s testimony about being severely beaten by anti-gay skinheads outside a gay bar, the court vacated the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision and … <Read More>
Federal Court Addresses How to Charge Juries in Federal Hate Crimes Cases
U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove (E.D. Ky.) recently conducted a trial of several members of the Jenkins family who were charge with kidnapping and beating Kevin Pennington, a gay man, because of his sexual orientation. Two members of the family, women, had pled guilty to lesser charges of assisting in commission of the crimes, but Jason and Anthony Jenkins, who performed the physical assault on Pennington, went to trial, and the court had … <Read More>
Michigan may be the next state to defend its ban on same-sex marriage in a federal court trial.
Senior U.S. District Judge Bernard A. Friedman, appointed to the court by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, ruled on July 1 that a Michigan lesbian couple is entitled to a trial of their claim that the state adoption law, forbidding same-sex couples to jointly adopt children, and the Michigan Marriage Amendment (MMA), forbidding same-sex marriages, violate their rights under the 14th Amendment. Rejecting the state’s motion to dismiss the case, Judge Friedman cited the Supreme … <Read More>
Another Chapter in the Ranftle Estate Saga Unfolds
A panel of the New York Appellate Division (1st Department) on July 2 affirmed the New York County Surrogate Court’s ruling that H. Kenneth Ranftle, decedent, had change his state of domicile from Florida to New York prior to his death, rejecting the argument by one of Ranftle’s brothers that the New York court lacked jurisdiction over the estate’s personal property. One judge dissented, asserting that Ranftle’s husband, the executor and proponent of the will, … <Read More>
First Fruits of the DOMA/Prop 8 Decisions – Quick Response from the Obama Administration, Resumption of Marriages in California, and a Decision Striking a Michigan Law Against Partner Benefits
Response by the “defendants” in the DOMA and Prop 8 cases to the Supreme Court’s June 26 rulings was swift.
Within hours after the Court announced that Section 3 of DOMA was unconstitutional, the President had announced his “applause” for the decision and instruction to the Attorney General to coordinate with executive branch department heads to seek “smooth” implementation for federal recognition of lawfully-contracted same-sex marriages. Some of the quickest responses came rolling in right … <Read More>
Supreme Court Strikes Section 3 of DOMA, Dismisses Proposition 8 Appeal
[Second draft of history. My prior posting on this week’s ruling in the DOMA and Prop 8 cases was written shortly after the opinion was release, and was intended as a basis for my journalistic comment to be published in Gay City News that day. Herewith my more extensive draft, reflecting further thought and containing many more quotes from the Court’s opinion, written two days later. And amended after a few hours to reflect some
Supreme Court: Clearing Up the Cert Backlog After the DOMA and Prop 8 Decisions
Yesterday the Supreme Court decided U.S. v. Windsor, affirming the 2nd Circuit and holding that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act violates the 5th Amendment, and Hollingsworth v. Perry, holding that the initiative proponents of Proposition 8, who had been allowed to intervene in its defense at trial, lacked standing to appeal the district court’s ruling. The decisions will go into effect after the Court issues its mandate, which is normally … <Read More>
Supreme Court Invalidates Section 3 of DOMA but Avoids Ruling on Proposition 8
[First draft of history. This posting was written within the first few hours after the Supreme Court’s release of its decisions this morning in US v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry. I’ll certainly have second thoughts and third thoughts, etc…. but this is the first draft of history.]
In a pair of 5-4 rulings released on June 26, the United States Supreme Court held that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates … <Read More>