The head of Lambda Legal's national organization paid the Windy City a visit Jan. 8 to discuss the recent progress for LGBT people made in the courtrooms in the Midwest and beyond this past year.
Lambda Legal Executive Director Kevin Cathcart spoke at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, 200 E. Randolph, for an informal breakfast and chat with local lawyers. Cathcart also touched on emerging trends across the United States, and made some predictions about what the future holds.
There were many legal achievements made in Midwest courtrooms over the past year, including the August 2007 decision ( Varnum v. Brien ) made in Iowa's Polk County that said same-sex couples must be allowed to marry based on the state's constitution's guarantee of equal protection. The Iowa Supreme Court will have final word on the outcome of the case, which was the first successful marriage-equality suit in the Midwest.
Progress has also been made in victories of cases resulting from the "terrible ways" that various constitutional amendment bans on same-sex marriage have had, Cathcart said. An example of that is in Ohio ( Ohio v. Carswell ) , where the relationship law passed there was used on a much grander scale in an attempt to impact the state's criminal domestic violence law and the protections it gives to unmarried couples. In July 2007, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that its domestic violence law was not impacted by the anti-gay constitutional amendment. "We use cases as an opportunity to educate the community about the terrible ways these laws are being used," Cathcart said.
Cathcart told the audience that a lot of work would need to be done in order to undo all of the laws passed around the United States. Although some battles can be won in the courtroom, he predicts that a lot of victories will have to occur through the political process.
Another Midwest victory happened August 2007, when Oklahoma's Court of Appeals struck down an anti-gay law, the Adoption Invalidation Law, which would have made children adopted by same-sex families states legal orphans when they came to Oklahoma. Lambda Legal took on the case in 2004.
Another important achievement, although not in the heartland, has involved the large amount of legislative support for same-sex marriage in California over the past few years. "This weight of support there makes it clear to me the progress we've made," Cathcart said. California is particularly interesting because the legislature passed same-sex marriage legislation twice, in 2005 and 2007. Both times Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed it once it reached his desk. Cathcart predicts that the legislature, under new leadership, will be able to pass a same-sex marriage law if the matter isn't taken care of in California Supreme Court, where it is currently being reviewed.
Lambda Legal will continue to educate LGBT people about how to take advantage of laws that do exist that offer protections. Cathcart said that although there is a "patchwork of protections," throughout the nation, a lot of people continue fall through the "holes in the safety net." He said the organization's long-term goal is to reduce the pool of people that need Lambda Legal's protections through education.
As for trends, Cathcart said an interesting one has emerged from their child custody docket. Lambda has always been involved in numerous child custody cases. In the past, the bulk of Lambda Legal's cases involved custody battles resulting from heterosexual divorce, but now many of the cases involve custody battles between lesbian couples. The faces involved in these cases will continue to change, Cathcart said. Lambda Legal just completed its first custody cases involving two gay fathers. "We anticipate we'll see more of those," he predicted.
He also predicts that while there hasn't been many cases regarding married same-sex couples that have relocated from Massachusetts and want to have their relationship recognized elsewhere, due to one of the law's residency provisions, there will be a growth of those cases. "Over the course of time, there will be a greater pool of people and I think we'll see a growth of those cases," Cathcart said.
He expresses excitement in the current civil-union bill in the Illinois legislature, because it would legally recognize marriages and civil unions from other states, such as Massachusetts. Lambda Legal consulted on the legislation, which continues to slowly advance in the General Assembly. "It's an exciting time for Illinois if we can get this bill passed because it will allow us to become an island in the U.S.," said Lambda Legal Staff Attorney James Madigan.
Cathcart said that the LGBT community will continue to go head to head with well-funded anti-gay organizations, such as the Alliance Defense Fund, which shows up frequently in cases. It isn't easy to go up against organizations such as ADF, which works with over twice the amount of funding Lambda Legal has. "It's important to understand how much more well funded the other side is," Cathcart said.
Despite the advantage the other side has, the LGBT community has been able to move forward in the courtrooms, Cathcart said. "While things have been moving slowly, there's been an enormous amount of progress in relationship recognition," he said, citing New Jersey as an example. There have been more civil union and domestic partnership laws passed in the United States in the past few years than ever before.
