On August 14, a federal jury in Burlington, Vermont, convicted Kenneth Miller of aiding and abetting kidnapping, in connection with the 2009 disappearance of Lisa Miller (no relation to Kenneth) and Isabella Miller-Jenkins, her seven year old daughter.  At the time of the disappearance, Lisa Miller was under a court order to allow resumed visitation between Isabella and her other mother, Janet Jenkins.

The back-story to this saga is by now well known.  Lisa Miller … <Read More>

Senior U.S. District Judge Alan C. Kay ruled on August 8 that Hawaii's law excluding same-sex couples from marriage does not violate the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  Ruling in Jackson v. Abercrombie, 2012 WL 3255201, Judge Kay granted a motion for summary judgment filed by Loretta J. Fuddy, Director of Health for the State of Hawaii, who defended the statute along with an intervenor, the Hawaii Family Forum.  Lead defendant Governor Neil S. Abercrombie agreed with the … <Read More>

Marking a slight extension of California precedent concerning lesbian second-parent status, a panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled in L.M. v. M.G., 2012 WL 3125123 (August 2, 2012), that the former same-sex partner of an adoptive parent may seek joint custody and visitation rights with the child.  Applying the Uniform Parentage Act, the court held that the paternity provisions apply, and that the original single-parent adoption decree does not detract from … <Read More>

U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant (D. Conn.) ruled on July 31 that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the equal protection requirement of the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  Section 3 provides that the federal government will not recognize marriages of same-sex couples for any purpose of federal law.  Judge Bryant  became the fifth federal trial judge to declare Section 3 unconstitutional since the summer of 2010, following courts in … <Read More>

Proponents of Proposition 8, who intervened as defendants in a federal lawsuit to defend their initiative amendment to the California Constitution banning same-sex marriage, have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 9th Circuit's decision that their initiative violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.  Hollingsworth v. Perry, Petition for a Writ of Certiorari filed July 30, 2012.  Attorneys for the plaintiffs, who challenged the constitutionality of Prop 8 in the trial court, … <Read More>

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination because of an employee's sex.  As construed by the Supreme Court, this is a broad prohibition on gender-related discrimination. As recently construed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, following the lead of several Circuit Courts of Appeals, this also applies to discrimination on account of gender identity.

However, every court agrees that discrimination against an employee because of their actual or perceived sexual … <Read More>

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that a same-sex marriage contracted in Massachusetts was void ab initio under the Massachusetts law against polygamy, because one of the parties to the marriage had never formally dissolved a prior Vermont civil union.  The court's unanimous ruling means that a pending divorce action to end the Massachusetts marriage will be dismissed.

According to the opinion for the court in Elia-Warnken v. Elia, SJC 11023 (July 26, 2012) by Chief Justice … <Read More>

Following hard on the petitions filed by the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives (BLAG) and the Solicitor General to get the Supreme Court to take up the question whether Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the Constitution in other cases, the ACLU LGBT Rights Project has filed a petition asking the Court to take Edith Windsor's case as well.  Windsor, whose same-sex spouse died in 2009, sued for a … <Read More>

Arizona has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 9th Circuit's decision in Diaz v. Brewer, 656 F.3d 1008 (2011), petition for rehearing en banc denied, 676 F.3d 823 (2012), in which the circuit court upheld a preliminary injunction that District Judge John W. Sedwick had issued to prevent same-sex partners of Arizona state employees from losing their domestic partnership health benefits.  Channeling the arguments that 9th Circuit Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain made in … <Read More>

On July 6, 2012, a unanimous panel of the New York Appellate Division, 4th Department, rejected a challenge to the validity of the New York Marriage Equality Law, which was enacted on June 24, 2011.  New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms v. New York State Senate, No. CA 12-00313, Opinion 644.

Opponents of the Marriage Equality Act (MEA) sued for a declaration that the law was not validly enacted because (1) the Republican caucus of the Senate … <Read More>