Blog of Rights
Matt
Coles
04/08/2009

The Legal Importance of the Iowa Marriage Decision

By Matt Coles, Center for Equality at 1:08pm

(Originally posted on Huffington Post.)

The Iowa Supreme Court decision striking down the state's exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage is the third from a state high court to treat government discrimination against gay people generally as a serious constitutional problem (the other two are the California and Connecticut marriage cases). All three courts say that a long history of discrimination driven by prejudice should make courts suspicious anytime the government singles gay people out. While there are some differences in details, the three decisions in essence say that if the government claims that gay people are truly different (and therefore should be treated differently), it has to back the claim with proof, not speculation.

The demand for proof is a crucial. The argument that is most often used against us in marriage cases is that children do best with a mother and a father, and that marriage is set up to promote heterosexual parenting. For quite a few years now, there has been solid scientific evidence that sexual orientation has nothing to do with the ability to be a good parent. That's why we have support from all of the nation's major child welfare organizations.

But as long as the courts were willing to let discrimination stand if the justification for it was "conceivably" logical in the abstract, it was tough to win the parenting argument. But when proof is required — as the Arkansas case on foster parenting in 2006 showed — we are in much better shape.

These three state high court rulings are not limited to marriage; they apply to any form of government discrimination. So they should be a help in cases involving schools, jobs and most particularly, cases about adoption, foster care and parenting.

Read More»
11/26/2008

Something to Be Thankful For

By Matt Coles, Center for Equality at 3:58pm

We won the Florida adoption case yesterday. A Miami judge ruled that the ban on adoption by gay people was unconstitutional. And I got two new heroes out of the case.

The first hero is Cindy Lederman. She’s the judge who finally had the guts to hear the evidence on gay people as parents. I wrote earlier this week about the evidence we gave her, and how it showed that sexual orientation has no connection to parenting ability. Judge Lederman also had the insight to understand what that expert evidence meant, and its legal significance. Here’s how she put it:

As a result, based on the robust nature of the evidence available in the field, this Court is satisfied that the issue is so far beyond dispute that it would be irrational to hold otherwise; the best interests of children are not preserved by prohibiting homosexual adoption.

And then she did what followed inevitably from that finding: She declared the law unconstitutional and allowed our client to adopt his sons. (You can read her opinion here.)

 

Read More»
11/04/2008

Thinking About History

By Matt Coles, Center for Equality at 5:08pm

After weeks of working tirelessly on CA's No on 8 campaign, LGBT Project Director Matt Coles is waiting for the election results and reflecting on the campaign.

During this excruciating wait for the polls to close and the results to be reported on California’s marriage initiative, I let myself think about history for a few moments.

Read More»
10/24/2008

The Secret Weapon in the No on Prop. 8 Fight

By Matt Coles, Center for Equality at 5:01pm

There’s a secret weapon in the campaign against Proposition 8 in California, the ballot measure that would eliminate marriage for gay couples in that state.

It’s you — and the power of your personal story told to your friends, family, neighbors and acquaintances.

The No on 8 Campaign has built a fantastic new tool for you to spread the word among your personal network.

Read More»
08/26/2008

The Schroer Trial Ends: The Meaning of Sex

By Matt Coles, Center for Equality at 1:10pm
The trial in Diane Schroer's case against the Library of Congress came to a close on Friday afternoon in federal court in Washington, D.C., Ms. Schroer is the decorated Special Forces Colonel who, after retiring, was offered a job as a terrorism researcher for the Library, only to have it snatched away when sh
Read More»
06/06/2008

LGBT Project Director Matt Coles Answers Your Questions About the California Initiative

By Matt Coles, Center for Equality at 4:07pm

On May 15, the California Supreme Court ruled that the state may no longer exclude same-sex couples from marriage. But anti-gay forces have gotten enough signatures to put on the November ballot an initiative that would amend the state Constitution and overrule the decision. I’ve been getting a lot of questions about the initiative in California, so I decided to put together some of the most common with my answers. Hope you find this helpful.

Read More»
05/15/2008

WE WON IN CALIFORNIA!

By Matt Coles, Center for Equality at 1:39pm
We won the marriage case in California. No need for hyperbole here; this is big; big in terms of what it does, big in terms of what it means, and big in terms of the opportunity for progress it gives us (I'll suggest some of the ways to take advantage of that opportunity below).

Read More»

04/16/2010

The President and Hospital Visitation

By Matt Coles, Center for Equality at 2:14pm

(Originally posted on Huffington Post.)

Early in 1978, I hung out a shingle and began practicing law with three friends on Castro Street in San Francisco. It was before HIV turned all our lives upside down, but we soon realized that hospital ICU visitation policies were a big problem for the LGBT community. So many lesbians and gay men in those days had come to San Francisco because life elsewhere was impossible. They'd built families because they were rejected by their "natural" families. But most medical facilities didn't recognize those families.

Read More»
01/14/2010

Supreme Court Bans Videotaping to Protect Prop. 8 Supporters

By Matt Coles, Center for Equality at 3:16pm

The Supreme Court just issued one of its most disturbing decisions since Bush v. Gore in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal challenge to California’s Prop. 8. Ironically, the plaintiffs' lawyers in Perry, Ted Olson and David Boies, represented opposing sides in Bush v. Gore. Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that video of the Perry trial could not be streamed live to courthouses in other cities.

Read More»
05/14/2009

Mormons and Knights and Understanding Proposition 8

By Matt Coles, Center for Equality at 5:01pm

(Originally posted on the Huffington Post.)

For their support of Proposition 8, the Mormon Church and the Knights of Columbus have been subjected to harsh criticism. They insist the criticism is unfair. All they did, they say, was exercise their democratic right to cast their vote on whether same-sex couples should be able to marry.

That response suggests the Mormons and the Knights don't grasp what Proposition 8 did. They speak as though Prop 8 were a simple vote on whether to support or oppose marriage for same-sex couples. But Proposition 8 didn't pass a law about marriage or repeal one; it changed the state constitution to say that a right available to everyone else would not be available to same-sex couples.

The difference between passing a law and changing the constitution is no technicality. If majority rule is the first premise of the American system, the second premise is that the rights of a minority can't be taken away by majority rule.

It was to make sure that minority rights didn't depend on the forbearance of the majority that we added a Bill of Rights to the federal constitution. And it was to make sure that the promises contained in the Bill of Rights were real that we early accepted the idea that while it was for Congress to decide what laws to pass, it would be for the Courts to decide if those laws were fair and equal.

Read More»
Statistics image