Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders

Celebrating 30 years as New England's leading legal rights organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation, HIV status and gender identity and expression.

Our Work Civil Rights Project

Civil Rights Project

LGBT rights have never been easy to win. Fighting for them takes passion, skill, and an absolute determination to prevail. That’s what GLAD delivers every single day.

Civil Rights Project

Since 1978, GLAD’s bold and effective advocacy has achieved scores of precedent-setting legal victories to end discrimination based on sexual orientation, HIV status, and gender identity and expression, benefiting individuals, couples, and families across New England and through the United States.

We fight because we care, and we win because we’re good. Each time GLAD argues a case of tackles an issue, we tear down more of the outdated laws and stereotypes that have denied LGBT people basic protections and opportunities in every area of daily life – family, school, employment, housing, government, health care, and beyond.

Whether it’s marriage for same-sex couples or non-discrimination policies in the workplace, GLAD doesn’t shrink from tough issues. And we don’t compromise on our belief that every LGBT citizen deserves full equality under the law – without exception.

Mary Bonauto, Esq.

Mary Bonauto has been the Civil Rights Project Director at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) since 1990. Her practice concentrates on impact litigation for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, as well as people living with HIV or AIDS. She has litigated widely in the state and federal courts and agencies of the six New England states since 1990 on issues of employment discrimination, custody, free speech and civil rights. In 1999, she and two Vermont co-counsel won a ruling that same-sex couples are entitled to all of the benefits and protections of civil marriage in the case of Baker v. State of Vermont. This ruling prompted the Vermont legislature to enact the nation’s first “civil union” law for same-sex couples. She was lead counsel in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, which resulted in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declaring that prohibiting civil marriage for same-sex couples is unconstitutional.

Mary is a graduate of Hamilton College and Northeastern University School of Law. She serves as a Vice Chair of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Committee of the IRR Section of the ABA.

New York Times Magazine May 2004: Toward a More Perfect Union
Mary Bonauto featured in The Advocate, December 2004
The Boston Globe Magazine’s People of the Year, December 2004

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In re Nancy Walsh

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Boy Scouts of America v. Wyman

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Bedford and Breen v. New Hampshire Technical College System

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The state of New Hampshire dropped its appeal in this case on… Read More

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The more people know their LGBT and HIV+ family, friends, and neighbors, the more likely they are to support our rights and help us work toward full equality. Read More