Public Interest

Sign On To Support Same-Sex Marriage In The Supreme Court

You can sign on to a well-drafted amicus brief heading to the Supreme Court.

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The Supreme Court might soon make same-sex marriage the law of the land. Read on to find out how you can get involved.

For the last twenty years, same-sex marriage in the United States has had its ups and downs. For many of these years, most of the ups occurred in the courts, while most of the downs occurred at the ballot box.

In 1996, on remand from the Hawaii Supreme Court and applying that court’s reasoning, a Hawaii state trial judge held that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated the state constitution. What followed was a wave of restrictions on same-sex marriage throughout the United States, ranging from an amendment to the Hawaii constitution to the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Also included in this wave was a legislative ban on same-sex marriage in Michigan.

In 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided Goodridge v. Department of Public Health and held that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated the Massachusetts constitution. The next year, voters in 11 states amended their state constitutions to ban same-sex marriage. Among these states was Michigan, which already had its legislatively enacted same-sex marriage ban in place.

Despite the results of the 2004 election, Goodridge was the start of a major expansion of same-sex marriage in the United States. Since Goodridge, some states’ marriage bans have been struck down by the 4th, 7th, 9th, and 10th Circuits. Other states’ courts, legislatures, and voters have affirmatively approved same-sex marriage. In 2013, in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court struck down a key section of the Defense of Marriage Act, and today 37 states allow same-sex marriage.

And as more and more states have allowed same-sex marriage, and as more and more same-sex couples have gotten married, and as the institution of marriage has somehow managed not to crumble into so much domestic dust, an unsurprising thing has happened: public opinion has swung solidly in favor of marriage equality (see, e.g., Pew and Gallup polling data).

But still Michigan’s marriage ban remains one of the dwindling few on the books.

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This might not be the case for long. April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse are a Michigan couple who cannot marry because they are both women. Also because they are both women, they cannot jointly adopt their three special-needs children. They filed suit challenging Michigan’s restrictions on same-sex couples, won at the district-court level, but then lost to a split panel of the Sixth Circuit — the first and only Circuit Court in the country to uphold a state ban on same-sex marriage. The Supreme Court granted certiorari last month, so DeBoer and Rowse’s case will likely answer the question whether states may ban same-sex marriages consistent with the United States Constitution. Though of course no one can say for sure, there are signs that the Court will rule that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional.

(A quick note: I took these facts from DeBoer and Rowse’s petition for certiorari, whose counsel list includes Mary Bonauto — perhaps the most successful public interest lawyer in the country. A skim of the petition will show you just how deserving DeBoer and Rowse are of the rights they’re currently being denied.)

I’ve noted that public opinion supports same-sex marriage, and the national gay rights group Human Rights Campaign agrees. The group is putting its money where its polling data are. They’ve brought in Paul Weiss partner Roberta Kaplan — who convinced the Court to strike down part of the Defense of Marriage Act in Windsor — to author a really well-drafted amicus brief. And (as was mentioned in a Non-Sequiturs item last week) they’re inviting anyone to join the list of amici on whose behalf the brief will be filed.

They call it the People’s Brief.

The idea is to show the Supreme Court just how strong public support is for same-sex marriage. It’s a novel way of demonstrating just what the public’s interest is, and the more signatories it attracts, the stronger it’ll be. Whether you’re interested in signing on or just want to see what a really good amicus brief looks like, I’d suggest you click through to read more about the People’s Brief and then read the brief itself.

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Then I’d encourage you to ensure your place on the right side of history and sign on.

Sam Wright is a dyed-in-the-wool, bleeding-heart public interest lawyer who has spent his career exclusively in nonprofits and government. If you have ideas, questions, kudos, or complaints about his column or public interest law in general, send him an email at PublicInterestATL@gmail.com.

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