(MPRN-Lansing) The legal team fighting Michigan’s same-sex marriage ban has settled on a well-known litigator for LGBT rights to argue the case before the US Supreme Court.
Mary Bonauto is the civil rights director for the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), based in Boston. She can lay claim to some of the earliest victories in the fight for marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. She helped win recognition in 1999 of civil unions in Vermont. In 2004, she helped win marriage rights for same-sex couples in Massachusetts.
“The road that we’ve all travelled to get here has been built by so many people who believe that marriage is a fundamental right,” said Bonauto in a statement. “Same-sex couples should not be excluded from the joy, the security, and the full citizenship signified by that institution. I believe the court will give us a fair hearing, and I look forward to the day when all LGBT Americans will be able to marry the person they love.”
Bonauto will be the only gay or lesbian attorney arguing for LGBT marriage rights in any of the four cases before the court. She joined the legal team following the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that upheld same-sex marriage bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. She will argue that refusing to recognize same-sex marriages violates equal protection rights.
The Michigan ban is being challenged by April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, two Oakland County nurses who’d like to be married so they can jointly adopt the children they’re raising together. Kentucky will join with Michigan in arguing whether states are obligated to recognize same-sex marriages under the Equal Protection Clause.
Arguing for Michigan and Kentucky will be former Michigan Solicitor General John Bursch, who successfully defended Michigan’s affirmative action ban before the court in 2014. Now in private practice, he was hired back as a special assistant attorney general specifically to argue the case. This will be his ninth appearance before the US Supreme Court.
The states want the Supreme Court to uphold the appeals court ruling that said the decision should be left to voters and legislatures. The U.S. Supreme Court told both sides to settle on two attorneys apiece to argue the main questions in the case. The Ohio-Tennessee case centers on whether states that don’t recognize same-sex marriages can be forced to recognize same-sex marriages performed in a states where they’re legal.
