#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.

Supreme Shift for Marriage Equality

It's happening. It's finally happening. California's landmark Prop 8 case is heading to the US Supreme Court.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision to deny an appeal of February's ruling against Proposition 8 paves the way for a U.S. Supreme Court decision on gay marriage by next year.

The decision means the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to have two major gay-rights cases on its docket in the near future. Another federal appeals court last week struck down a federal law that denied federal recognition to same-sex marriage.

Backers of Proposition 8 said they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 9th Circuit ruling. [...]

A majority of the circuit's active judges voted against such reconsideration. [...]

Judges Stephen Reinhardt and Michael Daly Hawkins, who voted in February to overturn Proposition 8, responded in a concurring opinion that their ruling was narrow.

"We held only that under the particular circumstances relating to California's Proposition 8, that measure was invalid. In line with the rules governing judicial resolution of constitutional issues, we did not resolve the fundamental question that both sides asked us to: whether the Constitution prohibits the states from banning same-sex marriage.

"That question may be decided in the near future, but if so, it should be in some other case, at some other time."

So what happens next? I'll let the experts at Courage Campaign's Prop 8 Trial Tracker explain.

Now that en banc rehearing was denied, the proponents have 90 days to file a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, seeking review of the decision striking down Proposition 8. It’s likely that Justices at the Supreme Court would have their conference to take up the petition and decide whether to grant review or not sometime after their summer break in October. Oral argument would follow a few months later, and then a final decision would be issued by June or July 2013. [...]

No one is certain if the Supreme Court would grant review of the case as it currently stands. Judge Reinhardt’s opinion for the three-judge Ninth Circuit panel is very narrow and the holding is specific to California’s unique legal circumstances. A denial of rehearing in this case leaves the decision California-specific and there may not be four Justices – the number needed to grant certiorari – who want to visit an issue that’s so limited in scope. On the other hand, the panel’s decision did strike down an amendment to a constitution of an enormous state involving a contentious issue. And allowing gay couples to marry in California would nearly double the amount of people in the United States who live in an area that allows same-sex marriage.

Remember that since the Ninth Circuit's ruling on Perry v. Brown (the Prop 8 case) was narrowly tailored to just the (mis)use of the initiative process to deny the already granted right of civil marriage equality in California, The Supremes may actually decide that this case is not worth their time. However since this case is already in federal courts and addressing federal Constitutional issues, they may yet take the case. They may particularly want to take the case if they're out to broaden the scope again and make a ruling applicable nationwide, so now the final fate of the Perry case rests on how "activist" the Supreme Court Justices are feeling this fall.

At the very least, the early signs look good for Nevada's own Sevcik v. Sandoval marriage equality law suit. After all, Lambda Legal is also presenting a narrowly tailored case in arguing how forcing LGBTQ families to take domestic partnerships instead of civil marriages does not provide equal protection under the law. While Nevada's case is different from California's in that we never had any time period of marriage equality to start with, the same logic that most Ninth Circuit Justices used in their Perry ruling can also be applied to Sevcik.

So we can at least celebrate some good news on the equality front in the Ninth. However, we'll have to wait until the fall to see if the nation's highest court is ready to make some broad strokes that could affect LGBTQ equality nationwide.

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.