Michigan's Stonewall Bar Association joins fight against California's ban on gay marriage

The Stonewall Bar Association of Michigan will join dozens of other LGBT organizations from across the United States in signing on to the amicus brief filed by the San Francisco-based Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Hollingsworth v. Perry. The brief urges the United States Supreme Court to affirm the ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that California's Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, in that it discriminates against gays and lesbians without any legitimate justification. California's Proposition 8 was a contentious ballot initiative passed in the November 2008 state elections that amended their state constitution. The measure added a new provision to the California Constitution, which provides that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." The Ninth Circuit ruled that Proposition 8 impermissibly took away the existing freedom to marry from a particular minority group--gays and lesbians--based on no legitimate governmental policy rationale. Michigan has its own constitutional amendment barring same-sex couples from marrying. That amendment was passed in 2004, when 59% of Michigan voters approved ballot proposal number 2, which added Article I Section 25 to the state constitution. That section now reads: "To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose." "Stonewall Bar Association of Michigan strongly supports marriage equality for same-sex couples, and the case of Hollingsworth v. Perry directly addresses whether denying the rights of marriage to gays and lesbians violates the equal protection guaranteed to all citizens under the Constitution," says Grosse Pointe attorney Timothy S. Cordes who is the current president of the Stonewall Bar Association of Michigan. "Our organization has joined in supporting this brief because we believe that gays and lesbians in California should not be denied equal protection by a ballot proposal that formalizes discrimination against them as a class in their own state constitution. "The amicus brief stands for the idea that it is wrong to exclude a class of people--gay men and lesbians--from the institution of marriage, and instead offer them only the inherently unequal status of domestic partnership. Stonewall believes that such a scheme violates the prohibition against 'separate but equal' accommodations for minority groups that has been upheld since the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education. "Something has to change, and I think it has to change soon," continued Cordes. "Michigan's own constitutional amendment not only denies same-sex couples the right to marry, but it also means that gay and lesbian couples legally married elsewhere in the United States can't have their marriage recognized here. We're creating a situation where Americans can't move freely from state to state without serious consequences. We're driving people away from our state, right at the time when Michigan's economy badly needs an influx of talented, energetic people to climb out of our fiscal crisis." Stonewall Bar Association of Michigan is a voluntary statewide professional association of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender lawyers and their straight allies, who provide a visible LGBT presence within the Michigan legal system. Stonewall member attorneys seek to protect and advance the rights of all Michiganders by providing legal representation, advocacy, education and outreach on the issues facing members of the LGBT community. Their membership forms a network for referrals and support, and provides a forum for discussing the needs of LGBT attorneys and clients throughout Michigan. For additional information about the Stonewall Bar Association, visit www.michsba.org. Published: Mon, Mar 4, 2013

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