Sam Spade's San Francisco

Lambda Legal is the symbol of civil rights defense excellence not because they chose to be, but because of the high level of competent service they have given to the American people. Make no mistake about it. The work done by Lambda Legal benefits everyone in this country, not only LGBT citizens.

Shown in the photo above right: Lancy Woo and Christy Chung, lead plaintiffs in the landmark San Francisco lawsuit defending marriage rights and equality.

Lambda Legal deserves recognition. They have an impressive track record of victory after victory for LGBT people. Take, for example, the case of Lawrence v. Texas.

When Lambda Legal heard that John Lawrence and Tyrone Garner had been arrested for having consensual sex in the privacy of John's home, it became evident to them that this case could be the one to end the criminalization of gay people once and for all time. Lambda Legal attorneys went to work and developed a strategy to fight the case. They took it through the courts all the way to the United States Supreme Court and they won!

In San Francisco the Lambda Legal office has been pusruing a number of landmark cases, among them:

Air Transportation Association v City and County of San Francisco. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld San Francisco’s landmark Equal Benefits Ordinance as a reasonable civil rights measure that does not violate state or local law or impose undue costs or burdens on city contractors. San Francisco requires city contractors who provide benefits for employees’ spouses to provide comparable benefits to employees with domestic partners. The principal defendant, Air Transportation Association, is a shell organization. ATA's members are nearly all the carriers that operate out of SFO. A list of ATA members may be found here.

Woo v Lockyer. In March of 2004, the California Supreme Court ordered that San Francisco stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and the ACLU filed suit against the state in Woo v. Lockyer, which argues that denying marriage to same-sex couples violates the state constitution’s guarantees of equality, liberty, privacy and expression for all Californians. Five other marriage equality cases later were coordinated with Woo v. Lockyer before San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer.

One year later, on March 14, 2005, Judge Kramer ruled that same-sex couples must be allowed to marry. Judge Kramer, who was appointed by Republican Governor Pete Wilson in 1996, said, “The state’s protracted denial of equal protection cannot be justified simply because such constitutional violation has become traditional. The idea that marriage-like rights without marriage is adequate smacks of a concept long rejected by the courts: separate but equal.”

The lead plaintiff in the case is Lancy Woo, a 39-year-old lifelong San Francisco resident who has a seven-year-old daughter with her partner, Cristy Chung, 41. Woo’s plaintiffs are 12 couples, five of whom had appointments to be married in 2004, but were turned away after the state Supreme Court halted the San Francisco marriages. That court later invalidated the roughly 4,000 marriages that same-sex couples had celebrated in February and March of 2004. In addition to the couples, other plaintiffs in the case include Equality California and Our Families Coalition, agencies that educate the public about the benefits of allowing same-sex couples the equal right to marry. Thanks largely to Molly McKay and Davina Kotulski, Equality California (EQCA) has been right on the front-lines of the marriage equality movement since day-one.

Jennifer C. Pizer, Senior Counsel for Lambda Legal in the Western Regional Office, is lead attorney on the case for Lambda Legal. Lambda Legal’s Legal Director, Jon Davidson, is assisting Pizer with the lawsuit. Other attorneys on the case include: Shannon Minter and Courtney Joslin of lead counsel National Center for Lesbian Rights; Tamara Lange of the ACLU of Northern California; Christine Sun of the ACLU of Southern California; Stephen Bomse and Christopher Stoll at Heller Ehrman White and McAuliffe; and David C. Codell.

Kovatch v. California Casualty Management Co. Ending five years of litigation, during which this case traveled to the Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court (which declined to review the mid-level appellate victory), the parties reached an amicable, confidential settlement in July 1999. The case concludes leaving a published Court of Appeal’s decision which applies tried-and-true principles of antidiscrimination law, for the first time, in a sexual-orientation discrimination context.

Once an award-winning, top-performing employee, Kovatch faced unrelenting antigay harassment in the San Diego office of California Casualty Management Co. In July 1998, the Court of Appeal reinstated Kovatch’s tort claims for wrongful termination and emotional distress, holding that the antigay epithets, ostracism, and undermining of Kovatch’s work relationships parallel the sort of conduct which, when motivated by other types of unlawful bias, support a discrimination claim. The appellate court held that Kovatch’s allegations, if true, were sufficient to prove not only that his termination was wrongful, but that the harassment warranted an award of damages for emotional distress.

S. D. Myers v. City and County of San Francisco. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously against this would-be city contractor, handing the American Center for Law and Justice yet another setback in the extreme right’s persistent nationwide crusade against domestic partnership recognition.

This case had piggy-backed on ATA, with S.D. Myers pressing similar claims that the EBO is preempted by federal and state law. Agreeing with the district court below, the 9th Circuit ruled that S.D. Myers failed to prove that the EBO burdens interstate commerce improperly. It likewise failed to show that the city is exerting power inappropriately. Absent any violation of federal or state law, the city may pick and choose with whom it spends its tax revenues.

S. D. Myers Inc. has a history of stepping on people's civil rights. In S. D. Myers Inc v Government of Canada the Ohio-based company filed suit against Canadian officials because they banned the export of PCB waste from Canada to the United Sates. S. D. Myers can make money from PCB waste and they want other countries to send us their PCB waste so S.D. Myers can turn a pretty profit handling and disposing of the waste.

Other cases currently being fought by Lambda Legal include safeguarding health care for transgender people, advancing laws against discrimination in the workplace, and, deafeating anti-gay adoption laws in Middle America. To learn more about the battles and struggles currently on the Lambda Legal plate, visit this site.

Another major player in the LGBT civil rights struggle is San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. He, his staff, Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Board of Supervisors have stood solidly on the side of equality from the beginning.

I cannot end this report in good conscience unless I pay tribute to the work of California State Assembly Member Mark Leno. Without anyone or any organization even coming close to his record, Mark Leno has demonstrated by his action before the California Legislature that he is our grandest and finest champion for LGBT civil rights.