#VegasPride 2012: La Comunidad

So Las Vegas Pride Weekend has been quite the fun weekend. However, it's also been quite productive. Yesterday, we noted the interesting turn of events on the politics of pride. Today, I'm hoping we can dig more into some good policy.







On Friday, PLAN hosted a pre-parade party and welcomed several guest speakers to come over and discuss what's happening in our community. One guest speaker was Marco Castro-Bojorquez from Lambda Legal. And not only did he talk with us about Latin@/LGBTQ outreach, but he also shared with us this amazing short film about three Latina mothers and their children's coming out experiences.



It was a great way to show everyone how and why forging cross-community alliances is so important. Oh, and so was the little pep talk by the always fabulous Astrid Silva of PLAN Action. Since she knows a thing or two on community outreach, she shared her experience on forging alliances to work for the common good.

And getting back to Lambda Legal, they also provided an update on the Sevcik v. Sandoval marriage equality law suit. Already, court watchers are seeing it as potentially a major breakthrough case for marriage equality. This really sets up Nevada to take center stage in the ongoing struggle for marriage equality. But since we're talking about a federal law suit here, it will take several years before it heads to the US Supreme Court.

In the mean time, Nevada LGBTQ community activists have plenty of work ahead in educating people on the need for marriage equality. The same goes for workplace equality, even though the Legislature has acted on that, along with a host of other issues still facing our community. And again, that's why we need to reach out to other oppressed minority communities in order to work toward the common goal of ending all wrongful discrimination.

That's why it was beautiful seeing the diverse crowd at PLAN's Las Vegas office on Friday. Hopefully, this weekend won't be the last time we see a civil rights intersection like this.

Brian Sandoval's "Moderate" Support for Marriage Discrimination

Oh, yes. This must be a top priority for Governor Sandoval. He's now throwing a temper tantrum and demanding that the federal court taking the historic law suit challenging Nevada's Question 2 marriage equality ban throw out this suit.

Gov. Brian Sandoval is asking a federal court to toss a lawsuit challenging Nevada's ban on same-sex marriage.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports the governor says marriage is a state issue, not a federal one, and the challenge shouldn't be pursued in federal court.

His written response came from Wayne Howle of the state attorney
general's office.

The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund filed the lawsuit April 10 on behalf of eight same-sex couples. The suit claims the couples are being discriminated against because they can't call their partnerships a marriage.

What. A. FAIL!

Brian Sandoval is a lawyer, so he's supposed to know the law. Why can't he see what I see and what many other lawyers and lay folk clearly see?

So the Sevcik case here in Nevada will come down to whether domestic partnership actually provides "equal protection under the law", and if we can ever have true equal protection as long as the Question 2 marriage ban remains on the books. Unlike AFER's argument for a broad, nationwide fundamental right to marry that's being made in the Perry case in California, Lambda Legal is making a narrower argument based on the inequality present in Nevada family law and how that can not make federal Constitutional muster. It looks like Lambda Legal is confident that even if some federal judges are hesitant to use one stroke to knock down all the state marriage bans at once, they have to closely examine situations like ours and realize that we're experiencing clear and illegal discrimination.

Marriage actually becomes a federal issue when a state's marriage law violates Americans' federal constitutional rights. And last I checked, when federal constitutional problems emerges, plaintiffs go to federal court to seek a remedy. That's why we have federal courts!

Oh, and why didn't Governor Sandoval see the episode of "Face to Face" when Jon Ralston invited two of the plaintiffs on his show to discuss the impact Question 2 has on their lives?



For someone supposedly so "moderate" and "open minded", Brian Sandoval seems to be awfully closed minded when it comes to supporting discrimination against LGBTQ Nevadans. Why is that? Question 2 was enacted a decade ago, and most Nevadans have been evolving on marriage equality alongside the likes of President Obama and Harry Reid.

So remember this next time some right-wing pundit blabbers on about how "moderate" Brian Sandoval supposedly is.

So Nevada Gets a Marriage Equality Law Suit... What's Next?

Last night, the lead plaintiffs in the case that's destined to shake up Nevada's marriage law went to Ralston to make their case.

(Start at 9:00.)



Yet while we see a new round of media buzz on this issue, let's not forget that there's an actual case to be tried in court. As we touched on yesterday, how the federal courts taking up this case interpret the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment will be key. And while there are similarities to the Prop 8 case in California, there's one key difference that Prop 8 Trial Tracker noted yesterday.

Lamdba Legal’s suit is no doubt in part inspired by the success of the American Foundation for Equal Rights in the Prop 8 case, Perry v. Brown, which led to historic rulings in favor of marriage equality in California both at the district and appellate court levels. Nevada, like California, falls under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, so lawyers in the Sevcik case could cite the Prop 8 ruling in the Ninth Circuit as precedent. Additionally, any appeal of the eventual Sevcik ruling would end up at the Ninth Circuit just like Perry did.

Despite these similarities, the legal arguments that Lamdba Legal are pursuing in Sevcik are not quite the same as AFER’s arguments in Perry. The central complaint in the new Nevada case is an equal protection claim that domestic parternships violate the civil rights of gay and lesbian couples. In the Prop 8 case, AFER made the same equal protection claim but also argued for a fundamental right to marriage under the U.S. Constitution. Tara Borelli, a staff attorney with Lamdba, explained to MetroWeekly that the group “certainly believe[s] that the fundamental right to marry includes same-sex couples, but this court doesn’t need to answer that question to rule for the plaintiffs here. We’re convinced that our equal protection claim is so clearly correct that we want to keep the focus on that claim.”

Lambda Legal’s strategy makes the Sevcik case a more conservative one than the Prop 8 case in Perry, and would appear to be a response at least in part to the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in the Prop 8 case, which declined to address the fundamental right question and instead focused more specifically on the circumstances unique to California’s situation.

In explaining Lambda’s complaint, Borelli said, “One of the reasons that we’re suing in the state of Nevada is that this is a particular equal protection problem that this case examines. It’s the kind of problem created where a state excludes same-sex couples from marriage deems them fit for all of the rights and responsibilities of marriage through a lesser, second-class status — in this case, domestic partnership. That shows just how irrational that state’s decision is to shut same-sex couples out of marriage.”

So the Sevcik case here in Nevada will come down to whether domestic partnership actually provides "equal protection under the law", and if we can ever have true equal protection as long as the Question 2 marriage ban remains on the books. Unlike AFER's argument for a broad, nationwide fundamental right to marry that's being made in the Perry case in California, Lambda Legal is making a narrower argument based on the inequality present in Nevada family law and how that can not make federal Constitutional muster. It looks like Lambda Legal is confident that even if some federal judges are hesitant to use one stroke to knock down all the state marriage bans at once, they have to closely examine situations like ours and realize that we're experiencing clear and illegal discrimination.

So where will we go from here? For now, this will be in courtroom of Senior Judge Roger Hunt. And regardless of how Hunt decides, this will likely head next to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Interestingly enough, The Ninth is the same court that issued a narrow ruling in the Perry case back in February, a narrow ruling centered on the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. And funny enough, the Sevcik case will be argued on the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. Coincidence?

And like the California case, don't expect any immediate resolution. This may very well end up on the Supreme Court docket, but perhaps not for another 3-5 years. So buckle up and get ready for a long and bumpy and fascinating and trailblazing ride.

Lambda Legal Sues to Reinstate DP Benefits for Arizona State Employees

Check out what's happening across the Colorado from us.

Lambda Legal filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tucson today to block a move to strip gay and lesbian state employees of domestic partner benefits.

"This is an issue of equal pay for equal work," said Tara Borelli, staff attorney for Lambda Legal. "By stripping away these vital benefits from loyal state employees, the state isn't just paying them less for the same work than their heterosexual colleagues - it's pulling away a vital lifeline that all workers need. This is simply cruel and saves the state next to nothing."

Lambda Legal represents 10 state employees - including from the Arizona Highway Patrol, the State Department of Game and Fish and state universities - who rely on health benefits from their employers to keep their families safe.

Arizona's domestic partner benefits for gay and lesbian public employees were adopted in the fall of 2008 under the leadership of former Governor Janet Napolitano, who left in January 2009 to become Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. This summer Arizona legislators approved a budget bill with a provision revoking the benefits while retaining the comparable health benefits for heterosexual public workers. Current Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed it.

If Lambda is taking this up, then there's a good chance that "Brouhaha Brewer" and the GOoPers in the AZ Legislature violated the law by throwing LGBT public employees under the bus and stripping away their DP benefits while leaving hetero marriage benefits in place. Let's hope Collins v. Brewer succeeds in federal court and sets a much-needed historic precedent in protecting DP benefits at work.