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Contact Laura Kiritsy (617) 426-1350

June 24, 2011

GLAD Congratulates New York on Achieving Marriage Equality

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, the organization whose successful lawsuits brought marriage equality to Massachusetts and Connecticut and laid the groundwork for marriage in Vermont, today offered congratulations to the state of New York, where the legislature — with bipartisan support—passed a marriage equality bill, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo has already pledged to sign into law.

“We applaud the elected officials in New York who championed full equality,” said Gary Buseck, acting executive director. “We are ecstatic for our friends and colleagues and the entire community in New York. We salute the heroic work of the organizations and all the dedicated public servants and private individuals who worked so tirelessly toward making New York the sixth marriage equality state in the country. They were strategic and dogged, they never lost hope, and they always took the high road to equality.

“As a major cultural and population center for our nation and the world, the state of New York today has sent a powerful message of liberty and equality for all that will no doubt resonate far beyond the state’s borders,” Buseck added. “This is a momentous day for the marriage equality movement.”

GLAD’s marriage equality lawsuit, Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, was decided on November 18, 2003, making Massachusetts the first state in which same-sex couples could marry. GLAD also successfully litigated Kerrigan v. Mock, which brought marriage equality to Connecticut in 2008. The organization also litigated Baker v. Vermont with Vermont attorneys Susan Murray and Beth Robinson, which in 2000 led to the country’s very first civil union law.