GLAD đã nộp đơn amicus brief with the Maine high court in support of a transgender man who was denied a name change by Cumberland County Probate court. Ignoring the well-established legal standard that allows anyone to take a new name as long as it is not for fraudulent purposes, the probate judge asked persona, intrusive questions about the petitioner’s reasons for the change and then ultimately denied it.
On June 24, 2010 the Maine Supreme Judicial Court vacated the judgment of the Cumberland County Probate Court and ordered that the petitioner, A.M.B., receive a new hearing on his name change application.
GLAD đã đại diện cho Thành phố Portland, Maine chống lại một cuộc tấn công vào sổ đăng ký kết hôn đồng giới của thành phố do mười người đóng thuế, cùng với hai tổ chức chống người đồng tính, Trung tâm Luật Hôn nhân và Trung tâm Luật Quỹ Phòng vệ Liên minh, lập luận rằng lệnh hạn chế kết hôn đồng giới của Maine và thẩm quyền chung của tiểu bang trong việc quản lý hôn nhân đã ngăn cản Thành phố cung cấp các phúc lợi đô thị cho các gia đình đã kết hôn, chưa kết hôn đang sinh sống và làm việc tại Thành phố. Vào ngày 28 tháng 4 năm 2004, Thẩm phán Tòa án Thượng thẩm Quận Cumberland, Thomas Humphrey, đã phán quyết có lợi cho Thành phố Portland, công nhận rằng việc Cơ quan Lập pháp Maine ban hành lệnh cấm kết hôn giữa các cặp đồng giới không ngăn cản sắc lệnh về kết hôn đồng giới, và kết luận rằng thành phố hoàn toàn có thẩm quyền bảo vệ sức khỏe và phúc lợi của công dân thông qua sổ đăng ký.
Quyết định này được đưa ra một tuần sau khi cơ quan lập pháp Maine thực hiện các bước nhằm tạo ra quyền công dân bình đẳng cho tất cả công dân. Thống đốc John Baldacci đã ký thành luật một dự luật tạo ra quan hệ đối tác trong nước cho những người trưởng thành dị tính hoặc đồng tính nam và đồng tính nữ sống chung theo các thỏa thuận lâu dài. Luật mới cũng trao cho các đối tác trong nước quyền thừa kế tương tự như vợ/chồng khi một trong hai người qua đời mà không có di chúc và cho phép người còn sống lo liệu tang lễ và chôn cất.
GLAD, along with Maine co-counsel, won the right to seek full parental rights and responsibilities for a non-biological lesbian mother in Maine whose former partner, the child’s biological mother, was seeking to terminate any legal relationship between our client and the child the women have raised together. Maine’s highest court (the Law Court) ruled unanimously that a de facto parent, one who has a parent-child relationship on the basis of conduct rather than merely on a biological or adoptive relationship, has equal footing to seek parental rights and responsibilities.
GLAD represented a committed lesbian couple from Kennebec County who jointly decided to have children together. They took all legal steps available to them to protect their relationship with each other and their son, executing parenting agreements, wills, and other financial and medical documents. They also petitioned the Probate Court in Kennebec County for a full co-guardianship of their son so that either could act legally on his behalf.
The Probate Court Judge reported the case to the state’s highest court, the Maine Law Court, and asked whether two unmarried people may be co-guardians of a child if one is the natural parent and the other is not. On November 4, 2003, the Maine Law Court affirmed that the Probate Courts have the power to grant full co-guardianships in these cases, enabling gays and lesbians to create a legal relationship to their children. Co-guardianships are in place until the child is 18, unless it is terminated earlier to serve the child’s best interests. Unlike the “delegation of parental authority” that some parents complete, the co-guardianship does not have to be renewed every six months.
GLAD won the restoration of disability insurance benefits for a Portland man suffering from disabling fatigue where the insurer sought to rely on mere stabilization from new medications to terminate benefits.
A case in which a southern Maine school sought to “solve” the two-year harassment of a student by graduating him a year early; GLAD successfully turned the focus back to a proper education and an end to the harassment.
On July 26, 2000, GLAD won a ruling that Massachusetts non-discrimination law applies equally to every employee of Massachusetts companies, even if the employee works out-of-state. GLAD represented two women from Maine who worked in Maine and were essentially terminated after their employers learned they were lesbians. Our clients filed a complaint at the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) under the Massachusetts non-discrimination law because their former employer was a Massachusetts-based company. After the MCAD dismissed our clients’ claim for lack of jurisdiction because the events occurred in Maine, GLAD appealed to Suffolk Superior Court. The Superior Court denied motions to dismiss by the MCAD and the employer, and the MCAD then agreed to reverse its position and announced that it would hear claims brought by out-of-state employees against in-state employers. The employer also negotiated a settlement with our clients.
In its first case addressing HIV, the United States Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Bragdon kiện Abbott that the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against people living with HIV, whether or not they show any visible symptoms or have an AIDS diagnosis. The Court’s 1998 decision is a critical victory for people living with HIV because the ADA and similar state disability discrimination statutes are the only legal bases to fight HIV-related discrimination in jobs, housing and health care.
In this case, Bangor, Maine resident Sidney Abbott went to Randon Bragdon, D.M.D. to have a cavity filled. Citing his fears of HIV transmission from a patient, Dr. Bragdon refused to fill her cavity in his office solely because Ms. Abbott disclosed on a medical questionnaire that she has HIV. Dr. Bragdon claimed that people with HIV who were not yet manifestly ill did not meet the ADA’s definition of “disability.” The ADA defines a disability as a health condition that “substantially limits one or more major life activities.”
In its landmark decision, the Supreme Court agreed with GLAD that the presence of visible symptoms or illness is not necessary for coverage under the ADA. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the Court, gave a broad, expansive interpretation to the definition of “major life activities,” and specifically noted that Sidney Abbott was substantially limited in the major life activity of reproduction because of the risk of infecting her partner and her child.
The Court’s language and reasoning, however, go far beyond the facts of Sidney Abbott’s case and ensures that all people with HIV will be covered by the ADA. In a lengthy analysis, the Court endorsed long-standing interpretations of the ADA by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which found that the ADA protects symptomatic and asymptomatic HIV-infected individuals from discrimination, in part because HIV limits both procreation and sexual relations. The Supreme Court directed the nation’s lower courts to follow these agency interpretations. The Supreme Court’s broad definition of “disability” and its endorsement of these administrative interpretations of the ADA mean that Bragdon kiện Abbott is an enormous victory, not only for Sidney Abbott, but for all people living with a disability.
Tòa án Tối cao đã được yêu cầu xem xét lại vấn đề bình đẳng hôn nhân—nhưng vụ kiện này còn yếu và luật pháp hoàn toàn đứng về phía chúng ta. Tìm hiểu thêm và biết rõ quyền lợi của mình.
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