   |
   |
    |
   |
  |
    |
  |
 |
| Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders |
|
Amicus Briefs Responding to
This brief argues that while civil unions are meaningful protection, they are separate from and unequal to marriage and that the legislature may not re-impose the marriage ban just struck down as unconstitutional in Goodridge v. Dept of Public Health. The brief addresses the terms of the declaration and the 180-stay in Goodridge and explains how they fit in with the Court's reformulating the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples and how they do not accommodate civil unions or any other attempt to keep gay people from marrying. Civil unions are unequal to marriage with respect to portability and access to federal protections; even more, they are state-imposed segregation. Excluding gay people from marriage deprives them of a choice at the core of liberty and imposes on them and their children an inferior status. The Senate's invocation of tradition as a justification for this unequal regime has already been rejected in Goodridge. Long-standing traditions must give way to basic constitutional guarantees of liberty and equality. The brief was filed by GLAD, the lawyers for the 7 same-sex couples who won the right to marry in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health. This brief states that creating a separate status for a group of people when there is no legitimate reason for doing so is inherently unequal, and therefore unconstitutional. The brief further argues that the proposed civil union system would create precisely the kind of second-class citizenship that the Massachusetts Constitution forbids. The brief was filed on behalf of U.S. Congressman John Lewis, one of the original speakers at the 1963 March on Washington, the Boston Bar Association, and 28 local and national civil rights groups, including the Massachusetts Association of Hispanic Attorneys, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Massachusetts Black Women Attorneys, NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Asian-American Lawyers Association of Massachusetts, by Palmer & Dodge, LLP, and Foley Hoag, LLP. This brief demonstrates the ways in which civil unions, created as a result of a political compromise in Vermont, have failed to provide same-sex couples with the same legal and social protections that only marriage can. The brief discusses the inability of a civil union to emulate the protection a couple has in being able to call themselves married, as well as the practical and legal limits of civil unions with regard to the difficulties of portability into other states and their inability to access protections provided by the federal government. Filed by Bingham McCutchen, LLP and the Vermont attorneys involved in the Baker v. Vermont case on behalf of 16 Massachusetts, Vermont, and national organizations that work with, represent, and/or provide services to same-sex couples and families. This brief shows that this Courts ruling in Goodridge is supported by the experiences of other countries, especially Canada, whose courts recently applied comparable equality principles to require recognition of marriage for same-sex couples and have repeatedly rejected alternative separate-but-equal regimes like civil unions. The brief also demonstrates the ways other countries have created separate institutions as a result of political compromise, not through judicial application of constitutional principles. Most of the new institutions are open to different-sex as well as same-sex couples, in contrast to Senate Bill 2175, which both perpetuates the marriage ban and also introduces a new discriminatory institution. The brief was filed by attorneys at Ropes & Gray and Goodwin Procter in Boston and Professors Robert Wintemute of King's College, London, and William Eskridge of Yale Law School on behalf of 15 international human rights organizations, and 21 professors of international law. This
brief shows that the Supreme Judicial Court, on the basis of its judgment
and opinion in Goodridge, must answer the Senate's question by concluding
that Senate Bill 2175 would not comply with the equal protection and due
process requirements of the Commonwealth's Constitution and Declaration of
Rights. The brief highlights the Court's function in providing opinions
to special questions posed by the legislature and the obligation of the Justices
to render their advice in conformity with the Court's binding precedent.
By adhering to binding precedent in its advisory role, the Court avoids involvement
in political calculations that would wound the Court's credibility and thereby
threaten its independence and the rule of law. The brief is authored by Harvard Law School
Professor Laurence H. Tribe and attorney Marty Lederman of Washington, D.C.,
and filed by attorneys at Hale & Dorr in Boston on behalf of 90 professors
of constitutional law and American history.
|