Unanimous California Supreme Court Rejects Attempt to Limit Discrimination Claims by People with Disabilities
‘The Court’s decision furthers the Unruh Act’s purpose to eradicate arbitrary and invidious discrimination from California’s business establishments.’
(San Francisco, June 11, 2009) — Today the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled that California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act does not impose extra legal hurdles for people with disabilities, including people living with HIV who seek damages for discrimination.
Statement from Tara Borelli, Staff Attorney at Lambda Legal and a principal author of the friend-of-the court brief Lambda Legal submitted urging today’s legal result in Munson v. Del Taco:
“The Court rightly rejected efforts to misread the Unruh Civil Rights Act to impose extra legal hurdles which would have harmed all disabled Californians who face discrimination in public accommodations, including those living with HIV.
“Real, reliable change for people with disabilities has been painfully slow in coming but the high court’s decision today promises greater fairness in California. The Court’s decision furthers the Unruh Act’s purpose to eradicate arbitrary and invidious discrimination from California’s business establishments.
“Though this case does not directly involve people living with HIV, the application of this decision will be helpful to all people living with disabilities who encounter discrimination, which includes many Californians living with HIV.”
Background on Munson v. Del Taco:
Kenneth Munson, a wheelchair user, filed suit against Del Taco, Inc. alleging violations of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and California’s Unruh Act. Munson’s suit is based on claims arising from visits he made to one Del Taco restaurant, where he encountered architectural barriers to his use of the parking lot and restroom.
Background on Unruh Civil Rights Act:
California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act requires that public accommodations — businesses such as restaurants, rental housing, and doctors’ offices — are open to everyone, without arbitrary discrimination based on disability (including HIV), sex (including gender identity), sexual orientation, marital status, race or several other personal characteristics. Similarly, the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) forbids denying disabled people equal access to public places. In 1992, California revised the Unruh Act to better protect disabled Californians from discrimination by saying that a plaintiff who proves an ADA violation has also proven a state law violation.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/unanimous-cal…
Lambda Legal Applauds West Virginia Court Order Restoring Custody of Foster Child to Lesbian Mothers
“The West Virginia high court has done the right thing in ruling in the best interests of this child. We applaud them for rejecting the prejudice that would have removed her from the only home she ever knew,” said Greg Nevins, Supervising Senior Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Southern Regional Office in Atlanta. “Children in West Virginia need parents to love and care for them and that’s what the state should want, too.”
Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the court on February 19, 2009, on behalf of Foster Children Alumni Association, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of the Eastern Panhandle, COLAGE (Children of Lesbian and Gays Everywhere), and Fairness West Virginia to urge the reversal of a trial court order removing the then year-old girl from the home of Kathryn Kutil and Cheryl Hess. The removal was ordered after the couple indicated that they wished to adopt the child. The trial judge accepted the view of the guardian ad litem that the Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) should only pursue an adoption placement for the child in a “traditional family,” consisting of both a mother and a father. The GAL also sought a statewide injunction barring foster children from being placed in gay homes. Friday’s ruling reverses this lower court finding, allows the child to remain with her foster parents, and permits the possibility that this home where the child has thrived eventually will be the adoption placement for the child.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/lambda-legal-…
Fla. Bar support in gay adoption case upheld
(Tallahassee, Fl.) The state Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the Florida Bar’s right to oppose the state’s ban on gay adoption.
Liberty Counsel, a faith-based legal group, had asked the high court to prohibit the bar’s Family Law Section from filing a friend of the court brief in an …
Tags: Adoption Case, Bar Gay, Faith, Family Law Section, Florida Bar, Friend Of The Court, Gay Adoption, Legal Group, Liberty Counsel, State Supreme Court, Tallahassee FlCA Supreme Court Upholds Student Civil Rights Act
(Sacramento, June 1, 2009) –Today, a Sacramento Superior Court dismissed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate SB 777, the California Student Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination against students on the basis of race, religion, disability, gender, and sexual orientation. The lawsuit was brought by a right-wing group that specifically objected to protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. The court held that the plaintiffs had failed to show any way in which the statute was even allegedly unlawful.
“We are pleased the court rejected this attack on the Student Civil Rights Act,” said Carolyn Laub, Gay-Straight Alliance Network Executive Director. “School should be safe place for all children, including those who are—or are perceived to be—lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.”
The lawsuit was filed on November 5, 2008. State Superintendent Jack O’Connell, represented by California Attorney General Jerry Brown, filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on January 8, 2009. On March 19, 2009, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, the Transgender Law Center, Equality California, and Gay-Straight Alliance Network filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the motion to dismiss.
Governor Schwarzenegger signed SB 777 into law on October 12, 2007. SB 777 reinforced existing anti-discrimination protections in publicly-funded schools and updated the Education Code so that teachers and administrators do not have to cross-reference other parts of state law to understand their obligations to protect students from harassment and discrimination in all school activities. The bill was sponsored by Equality California, the state’s LGBT legislative organization, and authored by former Senator Sheila Kuehl.
According to the 2001 California Healthy Kids Survey, nearly 30 percent of California youth in grades 7 to 11 report experiencing harassment or bullying based on their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender, or sexual orientation.
Equality California (EQCA) is the largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender-rights advocacy organization in California. In the past decade, EQCA has strategically moved California from a state with extremely limited legal protections for LGBT individuals to a state with some of the most comprehensive civil-rights protections in the nation. EQCA has passed over 50 pieces of legislation and continues to advance equality through legislative advocacy, public education and community empowerment. www.eqca.org
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/ca-supreme-co…
A Gay Justice?
Former Stanford Law School dean Kathleen Sullivan is, according to the National Law Journal, one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. She’s a nationally prominent scholar and teacher of constitutional law, and author of the nation’s leading casebook in constitutional law.
Stanford Law School professor Pamela Karlan clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, is founding director of Stanford’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, and is a leading expert on voting and the political process.
Sullivan and Karlan are both frequently mentioned as possible Supreme Court nominees for President Obama.
Both women also happen to be openly lesbian. … Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the conservative Family Research Council, says that “the real issue would not be the person’s private life but the issue would be would they be imposing their personal ideology upon the court. In this case would they be imposing a pro homosexual ideology, a pro-same sex marriage ideology.”
Sullivan, for instance, joined a friend of the court brief arguing that same sex marriage should be legal even if the “equal protection” clause “would not always have been interpreted by the courts to forbid discrimination against gay people.” Not allowing same sex marriage is a violation of “both due process and equal protection; the former because the right to marry is a form of liberty and the latter because the restriction treats lesbians and gay men differently from straight individuals.”
That she believes that because she’s lesbian, and not because she believes the refusal to allow same sex marriage constitutes unconstitutional discrimination, is another matter.
Either way, discussion about a Justice Sullivan or a Justice Karlan comes at a time when the Obama administration is hearing some impatience voiced by gay and lesbian activists on other issues.
“I think there is some disappointment in the gay community that (President Obama) hasn’t in this initial period spoken more directly and more forcefully about some of the issues he spoke about on the campaign,” Richard Socarides, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton on gay and lesbian issues, told us for Good Morning America today. “Specifically the ‘Don’t ask/Don’t tell’ policy in the military.” See Gay Justice?
ABC News * Tags = gay men gay news lesbian news transgender bisexual
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/05/gay-justice.h…
Supreme Court takes up dispute over endorsement of gay adoption by Florida Bar’s family-law section
State Supreme Court justices critically questioned both sides today in a dispute over whether the family-law section of the Florida Bar should be allowed to legally endorse adoption for gay couples. A circuit judge in Miami threw out the statute banning adoption by gays but the case is headed for the Supreme Court. The Bar itself has not taken a position but its family-law section sought to file a “friend of the court” brief supporting the circuit court ruling. Lawyers supporting the statute objected — saying the Bar shouldn’t be using compulsory dues paid by all lawyers to fight on one side of a controversial issue.
Tallahassee attorney Barry Richard said the family section is a voluntary association and that its lawyer members have a right to take positions. But Matt Staver, representing the conservative Liberty Counsel, said Bar rules forbid lobbying on either side of a hot topic.
The attorneys argued over the distinction between lobbying the Legislature and filing a legal brief in court. They also disagreed about whether a voluntary section of the bar is restrained by the same rules applying to the full bar.
Chief Justices Peggy Quince and Justices Barbara Pariente, Fred Lewis, Charles Canady and Ricky Polston pressed Richard and Staver on the legal distinctions.
Pariente said that if the prohibition on pursuing controversial, divisive issues had been interpreted as a ban 50 years ago, the Bar could not have taken sides on racial integration. Lewis said he doesn’t think much of “friend of the court” briefs, because they are usually partisan advocacy rather than independent guidance on the law, and that the public doesn’t make a distinction between a section of the Bar and the whole Bar itself.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/04/supreme-court…
Gay, married and outlawed
The questions and answers volleyed back and forth last week during the California Supreme Court’s televised proceedings on Prop 8, the state’s recently enacted ban against gay marriage.
And in a dark classroom at Chapman University, watching it all with a focused intensity, was law student Tiffany Chang.
In Chang’s view, the discussion was riveting. Did Prop. 8 simply “take away the label of marriage,” as one justice put it? Chang has heard all of the arguments, including those that say that same sex couples enjoy domestic partnership rights in California, so why insist on the designation of “marriage.”
You could say there was twice as much at stake for Chang, who tracks the legal debate for reasons both scholarly and personal.
Two years ago, in front of friends and family in Long Beach, Chang and her partner Lindsey Etheridge exchanged marriage vows in an unofficial, non-legally binding ceremony. Then, exactly a year later, on July 14, 2008, during the short window when same-sex marriages were legal here in California, Chang and Etheridge filed for “official marriage paperwork.” Then they married in a legal ceremony.
Chang says the event was life changing.
“We were in the clerk’s office and there were people there we don’t know, but they represented the government, validating our relationship,” says Chang, 28. “After it was all done, that sense of security, it was tenfold at least.
“I never could have known what that felt like, to truly be equal in our society,” she adds. “I don’t think you know what that feels like until you’ve got it.”
Chang was part of a “friend of the court” brief filed with the state’s Supreme Court in support of those who have legally challenged Prop. 8. And, in her declaration, she elaborated that on the day “I walked out with my head held higher than I thought was even possible.”
The brief was drafted by attorneys Katherine Baird Darmer and Ronald Steiner, who are also law professors at Chapman, and includes declarations from other people connected to Chapman, as well as from members of the Orange County Equality Coalition, a community group that says it educates and advocates for marriage equality in California.
For Chang, Prop. 8 isn’t just a matter of nomenclature; it’s a matter of denying a minority group the rights afforded to all others. Since the law passed in November, Chang has been speaking out in public. She says she’s come to realize that until a person is treated like a second-class citizen it’s difficult for them to understand what it’s like to be on the other side.
See
Gay, married and outlawed
OCRegister
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Adoption Emerges As The Next Gay Rights Battle
The announcement last week that conservatives had mounted a lawsuit against the Florida Bar to keep it from arguing in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to adopt in Florida is the latest evidence that adoption is likely to become the next gay rights battle.
Several events nationwide are pushing the adoption issue to the front burner of gay rights, but Florida remains at the epicenter of the debate.
Late last year, a Miami-Dade circuit judge was the latest to disagree with Florida’s 30-year-old ban on gay adoption, enacted during the infamous Anita Bryant anti-gay crusades of the 70s.
Judge Cindy Lederman’s order allows Frank Gill, 47, and his partner to legally adopt the 4- and 8-year-old half brothers they have raised since 2004.
Lederman’s 53-page ruling found the law to be unconstitutional and to have “no rational basis.”
The Florida Bar of Governors approved filing a “friend of the court” brief on January 30 supporting Lederman’s ruling when the state appealed to the Third District Court.
In an unusual move, lawyers for the conservative Liberty Counsel filed a petition in the Florida Supreme Court, saying the Bar is not free to file a brief in such cases.
Lawyers for Liberty Counsel argue the brief violates the First Amendment.
See
Adoption Emerges As The Next Gay Rights Battle
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/adoption-emer…
Groundswell of Support in California
On January 21, Lambda Legal and our sister legal organizations filed our answer to roughly 20 friend–of–the–court briefs submitted to the California Supreme Court by far-right legal and religious groups supporting Prop 8. Filed on behalf of petitioners, our brief debunks the arguments supporting Prop 8 and highlights the new consensus that Prop 8 was not valid and, if upheld, would threaten legal protections for all minorities. More than 40 amicus briefs support our position and speak for nearly a thousand religious organizations and faith leaders, scores of civil rights and community groups, many California municipalities and leading legal scholars. Also included were more than 50 California labor organizations — representing nearly 6 million working men and women, two current and former California legislators, 66 bar associations and many others. California businesses — including Google, Levi Strauss & Co. and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce — representing thousands of businesses employing millions of workers, also submitted a brief. They argue that allowing minority groups to be targeted using a simple majority vote is bad for business.
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/groundswell-o…
California Supreme Court to Hear Oral Arguments in Prop 8 Legal Challenge on March 5
Attorney General, Governor, and nation’s top civil rights groups agree: Invalidate Prop 8
(San Francisco, CA, February 3, 2009) The California Supreme Court announced today that it will hear oral arguments on Thursday, March 5, 2009 in the Proposition 8 legal challenge. The National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU—with support from civil rights groups, religious organizations, labor unions, and legal scholars—argue that Proposition 8 is invalid because the people of California have established strict safeguards that prohibit the underlying principles of the California Constitution from being changed by a simple majority vote. By taking away a right only from one group, Proposition 8 violates the most basic principle of our government: that all people are entitled to equal treatment under the law.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown is also asking the Court to invalidate Proposition 8 on the ground that certain fundamental rights, including the right to marry, are inalienable and can not be put up for a popular vote.
On November 10, 2008, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger stated that he hoped the Court would overturn Proposition 8. On CNN, he said of Proposition 8’s passage, “It’s unfortunate, obviously, but it’s not the end, I think that we will again maybe undo that, if the court is willing to do that, and then move forward from there and again lead in that area.”
On November 19, 2008, the California Supreme Court agreed to hear the legal challenges to Proposition 8 and set an expedited schedule. Briefing in the case was completed on January 21, 2009.
The California Supreme Court must issue its decisions within 90 days of oral argument.
On January 15, 2009, 43 friend-of-the-court briefs urging the Court to invalidate Prop 8 were filed, arguing that Proposition 8 drastically alters the equal protection guarantee in California’s Constitution and that the rights of a minority cannot be eliminated by a simple majority vote. The supporters represent the full gamut of California’s and the nation’s civil rights organizations and legal scholars, as well as California legislators, local governments, bar associations, business interests, labor unions, and religious groups.
In May of 2008, the California Supreme Court held that laws that treat people differently based on their sexual orientation violate the equal protection clause of the California Constitution and that same-sex couples have the same fundamental right to marry as other Californians. Proposition 8 eliminated this fundamental right only for same-sex couples. No other initiative has ever successfully changed the California Constitution to take away a right only from a targeted minority group. Proposition 8 passed by a bare majority of 52 percent on November 4.
The National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU filed this challenge on November 5, representing Equality California, whose members include many same-sex couples who married between June 16 and November 4, 2008, and six same-sex couples who want to marry in California. The California Supreme Court has also agreed to hear two other challenges filed on the same day: one filed by the City and County of San Francisco (joined by Santa Clara County and the City of Los Angeles, and subsequently by Los Angeles County and other local governments); and another filed by a private attorney.
Serving as co-counsel on the case with NCLR, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU are the Law Office of David C. Codell, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.
The case is Strauss et al. v. Horton et al. (#S168047). For more information, go to: http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme/highprofile/prop8.htm
EQCA works to achieve equality and secure legal protections for LGBT people. To improve the lives of LGBT Californians, EQCA sponsors legislation and coordinates efforts to ensure its passage, lobbies legislators and other policy makers, builds coalitions, develops community strength and empowers individuals and other organizations to engage in the political process. www.eqca.org
The National Center for Lesbian Rights is a national legal organization committed to advancing the civil and human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their families through litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education. www.nclrights.org/overturn8
Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work. www.lambdalegal.org
The American Civil Liberties Union is America’s foremost advocate of individual rights. It fights discrimination and moves public opinion on LGBT rights through the courts, legislatures and public education. www.aclu.org
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/california-su…
