American Civil Liberties Union

Today, 37 members of the U.S. Senate – led by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) – sent a letter to the White House urging President Obama to issue an executive order to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity by federal contractors. The senators, all of whom are supporters of the long sought Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), rightly describe the executive order as a "critical step that you can take today toward ending discrimination in the workplace."

Today is Banned Websites Awareness Day – a designated day within Banned Books Week – which is sponsored by our friends at the American Association of School Librarians and designed to raise awareness of the overly restrictive blocking of legitimate, educational websites and academically useful social networking tools in schools and school libraries.  At the ACLU LGBT Project, this is a subject near and dear to our hearts, and today we’re releasing a new report about our work to fight back against banned websites. 

You won't believe what passes for sex ed in classrooms across New York State: An anatomy lesson defining the vagina as a "sperm deposit", a handout portraying women as "hazardous material", cautioning students that same-sex attraction is a cause to seek "counseling."

Today, we asked the United States Supreme Court to review the ACLU’s challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act on behalf of Edie Windsor.  A federal trial court struck down DOMA last month in Edie's case, holding that it violates the federal constitution.

Asking for Supreme Court review now, even before the federal appeals court decides Edie’s case, is unusual.  In the vast majority of cases, the Supreme Court won’t take a case until there is a federal appellate decision, but in rare circumstances, it can reach down into lower courts and pluck cases for earlier review.  At this point petitions for Supreme Court review have been filed in two other DOMA cases – GLAD’s Gill v. OPM case, which has been decided by the First Circuit, and Lambda Legal’s Golinski v. OPM  case, which, like Windsor v. United States, doesn’t have an appeals court decision yet.

The Court will likely decide the constitutionality of DOMA this coming term, using one or more of these cases as vehicles for addressing the issue.  We filed because we believe that Edie’s story is a strong addition to the striking collection of plaintiffs in the Gill case and to Karen Golinski’s story as well.  Now the Court has three cases, offering a variety of harms, to choose from.

Edie is an 83-year-old lesbian widow who spent 44 years with her partner and then spouse, Thea Spyer.  Over the course of decades, Edie and Thea dealt together with Thea’s multiple sclerosis and the progressive paralysis that it caused, deepening their love and commitment as Thea gradually became a paraplegic.  When Thea died, two short years after they finally married in 2007, Edie learned that she owed the IRS $363,000 in estate taxes on her inheritance from Thea.  When Edie found out that a straight widow wouldn’t have owed a dime, she decided to challenge DOMA in court.  Her case was one of two that prompted the Department of Justice to stop defending the constitutionality of DOMA and instead to acknowledge that it violates the federal constitution.