A transgender state inmate confined in Chemung County is entitled to a legal name change, ruled the New York Appellate Division, 3rd Department, on May 31. The unanimous five-judge panel reversed an order that Chemung County Supreme Court Justice Judith F. O'Shea issued on August 29, 2011, in which she denied Jhirard Tahiem Powell's petition for a name change to Shaniece Nyasia Powell. In re Powell, 2012 WL 1948170.
According to the opinion for … <Read More>
While preparing to give a talk at my synagogue on the current legal status of same-sex marriage in the United States to mark the beginning of Gay Pride Month 2012 and the forthcoming first anniversary of the enactment of the New York Marriage Equality Law, I decided to put together a chronology of same-sex marriage legal developments in the United States over the past five months of 2012. I was amazed at how much has … <Read More>
A unanimous four-judge panel of the New York Appellate Division, 3rd Department, rejected old precedents on May 31 and ruled that
A unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, based in Boston, ruled on May 31 that Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act violates the 5th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The ruling on consolidated appeals in cases brought by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (Gill v. Office of Personnel Management) and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (Commonwealth v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) … <Read More>
I was privileged to attend Lang Lang's piano recital at Carnegie Hall last night. This was an exhilarating event, because Lang Lang is an exciting pianist, a technical wonder, a poetic master… Even though one might disagree with this or that aspect of a particular interpretation, there can be no doubt that the man is a formidable artist, always worth hearing.
The program consisted of Johann Sebastian Bach's Partita No. 1 in Bb, BWV 825, … <Read More>
Symphony Space, the fine facility on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is home – among many other groups – to Opera Moderne, which specializes in chamber opera of reasonable recency. Last night they presented "The Turn of the Screw," a chamber opera by Benjamin Britten based on a ghost story by Henry James. With a handful of props, imaginative costumes and projections, they managed to put on a creditable production of this challenging opera. … <Read More>
Last week I attended a performance at Atlantic Theater Company of "Storefront Church," a new play by John Patrick Shanley, who directed the performance.
The premise is that a woman living in the Bronx has fallen behind on her mortgage payments and faces eviction from the house she owns. She has been allowing an itinerant minister, a refugee from New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to use her ground-level storefront as a church, but after … <Read More>
The Supreme Court of Ohio announced on May 25 that it would not consider an attempt by anti-same-sex marriage forces to block a proposed ballot initiative intended to repeal Ohio
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken (N.D.Cal.) ruled on May 24 in Dragovich v. U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2012 WL 1909603, that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, 1 U.S.C. Section 7, and Section 7702B(f) of the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C. Section 7702B(f), are unconstitutional to the extent that they limit the participation of same-sex spouses and domestic partners of California public employees in the long-term care insurance program provided by … <Read More>
Last night I attended the NY Philharmonic's performance in Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, and experienced how dramatically the sound can differ based on a slight adjustment in seating. The acoustic quirks of that hall are notorious.
My regular subscription seat for my Saturday night series is in 2nd Tier, Box 4, and I find the sound there to be rich, deep, and reasonably well blended. For last night's concert, however, I had used the … <Read More>