Wisconsin Trial Court Dismisses ACLU Lawsuit Seeking Domestic Partner Benefits For Lesbian and Gay State Employees
The Court’s opinion states: “The plaintiffs have offered a strong showing that the employment benefits in issue have been provided on a discriminatory basis. The defendants’ explanations offered for the continuing discrimination against these plaintiffs are unpersuasive and inadequate.”
“Losing doesn’t get any better than this,” said Larry Dupuis, Litigation Director of the ACLU. “We knew we had an uphill battle in the trial court because of the earlier case. But the court agreed with us that discrimination based on sexual orientation should be subject to strict judicial review and that it is unconstitutional for the state to deny equal benefits.”
The Court also found that providing the benefits would not be barred by the anti-gay marriage amendment that passed in 2006. After the amendment passed, the state had argued that the amendment barred the state from providing the benefits.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit in April 2005 on behalf of six lesbian state employees and their partners. The lawsuit charges that it is a violation of the state’s equal protection guarantees to deny lesbian and gay state employees access to the same health insurance and family leave protections that it provides to straight employees who are able to cover their spouses. The lawsuit was stalled for years because a number of Wisconsin municipalities tried to inject themselves into the lawsuit. The issue ultimately went up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which ruled that they were not entitled to become a party to the litigation.
“While we are heartened by the court’s decision, we urge the legislature to pass the domestic partner bill so there will be no need to appeal,” added Chris Ahmuty, Executive Director of the ACLU of Wisconsin. “Our clients are forced to pay expensive prices for inferior health coverage and sometimes even to forego necessary care. They suffer every day this issue goes unresolved.”
Wisconsin Department of Corrections employee Jayne Dunnum and her partner, Robin Timm, pay nearly $450 a month for private insurance for Timm who works on the couple’s organic farm and food store in Platteville. “We don’t care if it happens through the courts or the legislature. We just really need the health insurance coverage,” said Dunnum. “It’s a matter of basic fairness. I work just as hard has my straight colleagues and shouldn’t be denied the equal employment benefits.”
The case is Dunnum v. Department of Employee Trust Funds. The couples are represented by John Knight and Rose Saxe of the ACLU’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project, Larry Dupuis of the ACLU of Wisconsin, and cooperating attorneys Linda Roberson and Christopher Krimmer of the Madison law firm Balisle & Roberson.
Biographical information for all of the couples, today’s decision, the complaint, and additional information are available at http://www.aclu.org/getequal/caseprofiles.htm.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/wisconsin-tri…
Bush v. Gore Lawyers Joining Forces To Fight Proposition 8
A coalition of gay rights groups said Wednesday that a federal same-sex marriage lawsuit brought by two high-profile lawyers is premature and they’d rather work through state legislatures and voters to win wedding rights.
A day after the California Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved ban on gay marriage, the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and other national organizations issued a statement saying they think the U.S. Supreme Court is not ready to rule in their favor on the issue. See Bush v. Gore Lawyers Joining Forces To Fight Proposition 8 * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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LGBT groups urge dropping federal gay marriage case
(San Francisco, California) A coalition of gay rights groups says a federal same-sex marriage lawsuit brought by two high-profile litigators is premature.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and other national organizations issued a statement Wednesday saying they think the U.S. Supreme Court is not ready to issue a favorable …
ACLU: School censored student report on Harvey Milk
(San Francisco, California) The American Civil Liberties Union is threatening to sue a San Diego County school that refused to let a student present a report on slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk until her classmates got their parents’ permission to hear it.
David Blair-Loy, legal director of the ACLU of …
California School Bans Sixth I Presentation on Harvey Milk
California School Bans Sixth
Grader’s Presentation on Harvey MilkFaces Possible
ACLU Lawsuit For Violation Of State Education Code
RAMONA, CA – Wrongly citing a school policy on sex education, a
California
school illegally censored a sixth grader’s classroom presentation about Harvey
Milk earlier this month. According
to a demand letter sent by the American Civil Liberties Union to the
Ramona Unified School
District today, the school violated Natalie Jones’s
free speech rights when it refused to allow her to give the presentation in
class. Instead, the school
improperly required classmates to get parental permission to see the
presentation during a lunch recess.
“This whole thing is unbelievable –
first my daughter got called into the principal’s office as if she were in some
kind of trouble, and then they treated her presentation like it was something
icky,” said Bonnie Jones, mother of the Mt. Woodson Elementary School
student. “Harvey Milk was an
elected official in this state and an important person in history. To
say my daughter’s presentation is
‘sex education’ because Harvey Milk happened to be gay is completely
wrong.”
The assignment, part of an
independent research project class, was originally to prepare a written report
on any topic. Natalie Jones, who
was inspired to write about Harvey Milk after watching Sean Penn win an Academy
Award for portraying him, got a score of 49 out of a possible 50 points on the
written report. Students were then
told to make PowerPoint presentations about their reports, which they
would show
to other students in the class. The
day before Natalie was to give her 12-page presentation she was called into the
principal’s office and told she couldn’t do so.
When Bonnie Jones spoke with the
superintendent about the presentation, he said Natalie couldn’t give her
presentation because of a district board policy on “Family Life/Sex
Education.” A few days later, the
school sent letters to parents of students in the class, explaining that her
presentation would be held during a lunch recess on May 8, and that students
could only attend if they had parental permission.
“The principal and superintendent
grossly misinterpreted school policy.
They illegally censored student speech protected by the First Amendment
and the California Education Code,” said David
Blair-Loy, Legal Director of the ACLU of San Diego and
Imperial
Counties. “Writing or talking about a gay
historical figure who advocated for equal rights for LGBT Californians is in no
way the same thing as talking about sex, and school officials should
not pretend
otherwise.”
The Ramona Unified School
District policy on “Family Life/Sex
Education” reads in part:
“(P)arents/guardians shall be
notified in writing about any instruction in which human reproductive
organs and
their functions, processes, or sexually transmitted diseases are described,
illustrated, or discussed. In
addition, before any instruction on family life, human sexuality, AIDS or
sexually transmitted diseases is given, the parent/guardian shall be provided
with written notice explaining that the instruction will be
given…”
“Schools that act as if any mention
of the existence of gay people is something too controversial or ‘sensitive’ to
discuss are doing a disservice to their students,” said Elizabeth
Gill, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s
national LGBT Project. “This school
completely overstepped its bounds in trying to silence Natalie Jones
by shunting
her presentation off to a lunch recess time and misusing a school policy to
justify requiring parental permission to see it.”
In today’s letter, the ACLU is
demanding that the school:
·
Apologize in writing to Natalie
Jones and send a letter about that apology to all the parents who were sent the
principal’s letter about the presentation
·
Give
Natalie Jones an opportunity to give her presentation to all the other members
of her independent research project class
·
Clarify
in writing that the parental notification and permission portion of the “Family
Life/Sex Education” policy only applies to the curricula identified as “course
content” for “Family Life/Sex Education instruction”
The ACLU is giving the district
five days to respond or it may file a lawsuit on Bonnie and Natalie Jones’s
behalf.
Harvey Milk, one of Time Magazine’s “Time 100 Heroes and
Icons of the 20th Century” in 1999, has been the subject of several books, an
opera, a documentary film that won the 1984 Academy Award for Documentary
Feature, and a feature film released last year that won two Academy Awards for
Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor.
Milk’s birthday, the subject of a bill pending in the California legislature
that would make it a state holiday, is this Friday.
For additional information,
including copies of Natalie Jones’s presentation on Harvey Milk, the school’s
letter to parents, and the Ramona U.S.D. “Family Life/Sex Education” policy,
visit http://www.aclu.org/Milk.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/california-sc…
ACLU Sues To Stop Tennessee Schools From Censoring Gay Educational Web Sites; Filtering Software Allows Anti-Gay Sites
NASHVILLE, TN – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Tennessee sued two Tennessee school districts in federal court today, charging the schools are unconstitutionally blocking students from accessing online information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, Knox County Schools and as many as 105 other school districts in Tennessee use Internet filtering software to block Web sites containing pro-LGBT speech, but not Web sites touting so-called “reparative therapy” and “ex-gay” ministries. The “LGBT” filter is not used to block sites containing pornography, which are filtered under a different category, but it does block the sites of many well-known LGBT organizations including Parents, Families, And Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
“Allowing access to Web sites that present one side of an issue while blocking sites that present the other side is illegal viewpoint discrimination,” said Catherine Crump, a staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working Group and lead attorney on the case. “This discriminatory censorship does nothing to make students safe from material that may actually be harmful, but only hurts them by making it impossible to access important educational material.”
The school districts block the Internet filtering category designated “LGBT,” which includes sites that “provide information regarding, support, promote, or cater to one’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” They do not, however, block sites that condemn homosexuality or promote “reparative therapy,” a practice purporting to “cure” LGBT people that is denounced as dangerous and harmful to young people by such groups as the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association.
The ACLU filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee against Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools and Knox County Schools on behalf of two high school students in Nashville, one student in Knoxville and a high school librarian in Knoxville who is also the advisor of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA).
“Students need to be able to access information about their legal rights or what to do if they’re being harassed at school,” said Keila Franks, a 17-year-old student at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville and a plaintiff on the case. “It’s completely unfair for schools to keep students in the dark about such important issues and treat Web sites that just offer information like they’re something dirty.”
The lawsuit charges that blocking LGBT sites violates students’ First Amendment rights by only allowing access to sites that present an anti-gay point of view on the rights of LGBT persons on issues such as anti-gay harassment, marriage, employment discrimination and the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy while blocking access to sites that support LGBT rights. Further, the filtering hinders the ability of GSAs and their members to facilitate club activities and keeps students from accessing important information about scholarships for LGBT students or doing research for school-related assignments.
The ACLU first learned about the discriminatory filtering from Andrew Emitt, a Knoxville high school student who discovered the problem while trying to search for LGBT scholarships. Internet filtering software is mandated in public schools by Tennessee law, which requires schools to implement software to restrict information that is obscene or harmful to minors. However, the “LGBT” filter category does not include material which is sexually gratuitous and already included in the “pornography” filtering category.
“While schools may have an interest in using filters to block material that could be harmful to minors, blocking access to information about LGBT issues while allowing anti-gay information is unlawful and potentially dangerous,” said Tricia Herzfeld, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Tennessee. “There is no place for this kind of unconstitutional censorship in our public schools.”
In addition to Crump and Herzfeld, attorneys on the case are Chris Hansen of the ACLU First Amendment Working Group and Christine Sun of the ACLU LGBT Project.
The plaintiffs are Nashville students Keila Franks and Emily Logan, Knoxville student Bryanna Shelton, and Karyn Storts-Brinks, a Knoxville high school librarian and faculty sponsor for her school’s GSA.
More information about the case, including the ACLU’s complaint and a video featuring one of the student plaintiffs, is available online at: www.aclu.org/lgbt/youth/39346res20090413.html.
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High School Student Takes On Anti-Gay Harassment — And Wins
ACLU Reaches Agreement With School District To Combat Bias After Lesbian Student Is Harassed By Teachers
VALLEJO, CA – The American Civil Liberties Union announced today that it has reached a settlement agreement with the Vallejo City Unified School District on behalf of a high school student who faced anti-gay harassment and discrimination from teachers and school staff and was required to participate in a school-sponsored “counseling” group designed to discourage students from being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. The settlement is designed to combat harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity at all the district’s schools, and includes district-wide anti-harassment training for students and staff.
“All I ever wanted was to be able to go to school and just be myself. But I couldn’t do that when the people I was supposed to be learning from were judging me and telling me something was wrong with me. How was I supposed to learn when I was constantly scared?” said Hamilton, a high school student who came out as a lesbian when she was 13.
For Rochelle Hamilton, starting high school was the beginning of relentless verbal harassment and discrimination from teachers and staff based on her sexual orientation and gender expression. Hamilton began attending Vallejo’s Jesse Bethel High School as a sophomore in the fall of 2007. The verbal attacks started almost immediately, and continued for months.
Hamilton became severely depressed and her grades plummeted. Worried for her daughter, Hamilton’s mother, Cheri Hamilton, repeatedly wrote letters, made phone calls, and met in person with school and district officials for several months. After three months of outreach to the school and the district, Cheri Hamilton contacted the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California for help. The ACLU intervened to resolve the matter with the school district.
Hamilton reports that while some of the harassment she suffered came from other students, most of the time it came from school teachers and staff. Specific incidents included:
· A teacher approached Hamilton while she was hugging her girlfriend and said, “This is ungodly, and you’re going to hell. This is a sin.”
· Another teacher said, “What’s wrong with you? What are you, a man or a woman?”
· Other school staff made repeated harassing comments to Hamilton in front of her classmates, including saying, “it’s not right to be this way.”
· Hamilton was also on several occasions denied access to the girls’ locker room.
“California school districts are required by state law to protect students from harassment and discrimination, including on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity,” said Elizabeth Gill, an ACLU-NC staff attorney who worked with the district on the settlement. “If a school district ignores anti-gay bias in schools, it is plainly violating both state and federal law. These laws are designed, in part, to ensure that all students are able to learn and thrive free from bias. When it’s left unchecked, harassment can take a serious toll on students.”
One of the most egregious incidents in this case involved a school counselor who required Hamilton to attend a special weekly support group for gay students. The real purpose of the group was quickly revealed, however, when the counselor berated students for “choosing” to be gay and tried to convince them to change their sexual orientation or gender expression. The counselor told the students that it is “hard to get a job if you’re gay.” When Hamilton’s mother went to school officials about the “counseling” group, the counselor confronted Hamilton the next week, telling her, “You’re going to get this treatment your whole life. What are you going to do, stand up every time?”
“The district-wide anti-harassment training will make Vallejo schools a more welcoming place to learn for all students,” said Jory Steele, ACLU-NC’s managing attorney. “District administrators made the right move in taking important steps to protect its students from bias.”
Hamilton transferred out of Jesse Bethel High School midway through her sophomore year to escape the daily harassment. She is now completing her junior year at another high school in the district.
Pursuant to the five-year agreement reached with the ACLU, the district will adopt a clear policy explicitly prohibiting discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity, as required by California law; develop a specific procedure for harassment and discrimination complaints; provide mandatory training for all teachers and other staff who interact with students in how to identify anti-gay harassment and discrimination, why it’s harmful, and how to prevent it; and provide mandatory anti-harassment training to all students in the district, as well as taking other steps to make the district a more welcoming environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/high-school-s…
Settlement in lesbian student harassment case
(Vallejo, California) A settlement has been reached between a student, who claimed she had faced anti-gay harassment and discrimination from teachers and school staff, and the Vallejo City Unified School District.
The settlement was reached by the American Civil Liberties Union and includes district-wide anti-harassment training for students and staff.
Rochelle Hamilton, …
Marriage equality “a matter of time,” ACLU chief says
Marriage equality “a matter of time,” ACLU chief says
There is momentum nationally for marriage equality, according to Anthony Romero, the out executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s just a matter of time,” he said before an appearance in Philadelphia. However, Pennsylvania is considered unlikely to enact marriage equality without a court order, according to advocates in the Keystone State. The Philadelphia Inquirer * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/marriage-equa…
McDonald’s Agrees To Training and Settlement After Staff Called Gay Customers “Faggots,” Super-Size Training For Management Offered After Kentucky Incident
LOUISVILLE, KY – Nine months after an employee at a McDonald’s restaurant in downtown Louisville called a group of gay customers a series of anti-gay slurs, the American Civil Liberties Union announced today that McDonald’s has agreed to a cash settlement and diversity training for management at 30 of its Louisville-area restaurants.
Ryan Marlatt, Teddy Eggers, and three other friends had stopped for lunch at a McDonald’s restaurant on East Market Street on July 26, 2008 while visiting Louisville for the weekend. While they waited for their food to be prepared, an employee behind the counter referred to them as “faggots” to another employee. When Marlatt and Eggers objected to the slur and asked to speak with a manager, the employee who had called them “faggots” started arguing with them, repeatedly calling them “faggots” in front of other customers and calling one of them a “cocksucker” and “bitch.”
“The reason we made such a big deal out of this to begin with was because we didn’t want it happening to anyone else, so I’m very glad McDonald’s management is going to be having these trainings,” said Eggers of Indianapolis, Indiana. “We were hurt and upset, but at least we’re adults and can handle being called names. We hated thinking that this kind of harassment might also happen to someone young and vulnerable who would really take it to heart.”
The supervisor on duty refused to refund the group’s purchase, so Marlatt attempted several times in the following weeks to contact both the general manager of the McDonald’s and the corporate offices, with no results. Louisville law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, so the ACLU filed a complaint in September on behalf of Marlatt and Eggers with the Louisville Human Relations Commission. In October, representatives of a variety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups as well as other civil rights organizations protested at the downtown Louisville McDonald’s where the incident took place.
Although Marlatt and Eggers only asked for $28, McDonald’s offered them $2000 each on its own, which they accepted, Sun said. The Louisville Human Relations Commission has been thoroughly investigating Eggers and Marlatt’s complaint since it was filed last September and helped negotiate the settlement between the parties.
“We’re really grateful to the Louisville Metro Human Relations Commission for its investigation, as well as to our friends at the Fairness Campaign, and commonGround at the University of Louisville, for keeping the pressure on McDonald’s to do the right thing,” said Michael Aldridge, Executive Director of the ACLU of Kentucky. “While we’re fortunate to have a law banning sexual orientation discrimination in Louisville, this goes to show that it’s still important to speak out and do something about it when your rights are violated.”
“McDonald’s could have saved itself a lot of embarrassment if they’d just done the right thing from the start and done something about this, but it’s great that so many people stood up for us and came forward to say treating people the way we were treated is wrong,” said Marlatt. “We just hope the trainings keep McDonald’s from letting this happen to any of their customers from now on.”
When their Louisville Human Relations Commission complaint was filed, Marlatt and Eggers asked for a refund of the money they spent on the McDonald’s meal, and asked that one employee – the cashier who objected to the other employee’s name-calling – be commended. “She was the only employee in the whole place who tried to help us,” said Eggers. “I hope she hears about this and knows how much we appreciated her sticking up for us.”
“While we wish Ryan, Teddy, and their friends hadn’t had to go through this whole experience to begin with, we’re glad that at least McDonald’s is taking steps to prevent anything like this from happening again in the future,” said Christine Sun, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project who is representing Marlatt and Eggers. “Businesses should treat all of their customers with respect regardless of their sexual orientation.”
A video of Marlatt and Eggers telling the story of what happened to them as well as their complaint to the Human Relations Commission can be found at http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/discrim/36781res20080916.html.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/mcdonalds-agr…
