The Alliance of Illinois Judges held their annual awards June 26 at the Chicago Bar Association.
Cook County Circuit Court Associate Judge Patricia M. Logue, attorneys William B. Kelley and Jill M. Metz, and Cook County Circuit Court Associate Judge Nancy J. Katz were presented with "Legal Legends from Stonewall to Lawrence" awards.
Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans swore in new officers and directors of the Alliance of Illinois Judges: Associate Judge Stuart P. Katz, AIJ president; Judge Mary S. Trew, vice president; Judge John H. Ehrlich, treasurer; Judge Colleen Sheehan, director; retired Judge James A. Shapiro, director; Presiding Judge Sebastian T. Patti, secretary; Associate Judge Patricia M. Logue, director; and Associate Judge James E. Snyder, director, all from the Cook County Circuit Court.
Following is the speech by William B. Kelley at the event.
It's an honor not just to get an award but to be in the company of so many members of the bench, gathered under the aegis of an association that might not have been dreamt of 50 years ago. It's made all the more special by the presence of my old and admired friend, Chief Judge Evans, whose support for gay rights as a politician goes back at least 40 years. And, of course, being here on the same day as today's Supreme Court's marriage rulings makes it all the more poignant, and delightful.
It was suggested I say something about lawyers in the pre-Stonewall days. Even though I wasn't a lawyer then, I do have some recollections to share. The first one is that we couldn't get those Supreme Court rulings as fast as we did today.
And I don't see Stonewall as the sharp dividing line some do. Efforts and achievements were being made before Stonewall that resembled those after, and problems persisted after Stonewall that we had been addressing earlier.
One recollection, and though there were a number of reasons I didn't go to law school until 1987, is that I do remember being concerned during a certain period in the '60s and '70s about how my gayness and my history of activism would fare in the eyes of the Character and Fitness Committee. This was true even though Illinois had already repealed its law making me a criminal, and it was all the more true for would-be lawyers in states that hadn't yet taken that step.
For example, I remember a bright, personable young activist lawyer in Columbus, Ohio, whom I knew from our involvement in a gay rights roundtable group of the early '70s called the National Committee for Sexual Civil Liberties. His name was Craig Patton, and he had to fight vigorously to be admitted to the Ohio bar. After word reached the Ohio Supreme Court that he was gay, the court refused to accept his character and fitness certification from the Columbus bar association and convened an unprecedented committee of about two dozen lawyers to take testimony on his fitness. After testimony, the committee voted 12—11 to certify him. And there were others, for instance, the New York case of Kimball in 1973, another Florida case in 1981, and then Kimball's Florida case in 1982.
Of course, gay applicants weren't alone in facing injustice. Until 1979, when the Virginia Supreme Court reversed the policy, women applicants in Virginia could be denied admission on the ground that they were cohabiting with a man out of wedlock. We can imagine what the policy might have been for lesbians.
Quite a difference from this year, when a group of openly LGBT lawyers were admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court bar. I wasn't with them, but a couple of months later I did the same thing as part of a law-school-sponsored trip.
In 1965, when I got involved with the new Mattachine Midwest organization, there were just three lawyers in Chicago who were widely known for having gay or lesbian clienteles. One of them was non-gay; the other two weren't out professionally, although all three of them helped out the gay organizations of the day. One was the late Pearl Hart. One was the late Paul Goldman. The third was the still-alive-and-kicking Ralla Klepak. In fact, I worked in Ralla's and her father's office from 1967 to 1976, and that was a help in being an activist. Contrast that situation with what you find when you Google "gay lawyer" today.
Soon after I got involved, in the latter part of the '60s, a new lawyer came on the scene, the late Renee Hanover. In later years, she said she was the first openly lesbian lawyer in the United States, and I've never come across a competing claim. Though she was a good student and won a constitutional law prize, Renee almost didn't make it through law school, because, as she told it, she was expelled for being a lesbian until Pearl Hart intervened. Pearl was widely respected at the school and got Renee reinstated. Later, Renee officed with Pearl for a few years.
Renee and I became good friends for the rest of her life, not least because she went to law school late in her own life after a career of activist politics, the same as I did 20 years later. In fact, she kept pushing me to go to law school, and I finally did when I was able.
One thing I remember from those early '70s days was helping Renee with a case involving the Chicago ordinance against wearing clothes not belonging to one's sex. She got Judge Jack Sperling to declare the ordinance unconstitutional. The judge was a former City Council colleague of Chief Judge Evans. Renee loved to quote a newspaper account about the case that dryly mentioned how Ms. Hanover wore a pantsuit and the judge wore a robe.
Another thing I remember is an effort by Renee and me to get a gay law students association organized here in the early '70s. A friend of mine in California, Tom Coleman, had organized the nation's first one in 1972. After getting out as much publicity as we could and setting up a meeting place, we attracted at most one person, and I'm not even sure how accurate that memory is. The group never got off the ground. Another contrast with today.
Well, I could go on, but let me just say what a difference a lifespan makes. We have an association of LGBT judges. I actually became friends with a transwoman judge, now gone. Anti-gay criminal laws have disappeared nationwide. Nondiscrimination laws are in force in much of the country—including judicial ethics rules. The ABA is more pro-gay than ever. Official military discrimination has been abolished. Gay immigrants can now enter the country legally—if they can get in at all, that is. Marriage rights are in the offing.
But there's still so much to do, on the marriage, immigration, and military fronts, as well as others. Having a group such as the AIJ can only help us along. And being recognized for my contributions is gratifying. Thank you very much for that.
