I cannot imagine the searing pain of losing a partner. I hope, of course, that I live my whole life never knowing such loss. In our work at NCLR, we have represented a number of men and women living through that almost unbearable tragedy, and in every case, their loss is compounded and the injury magnified by the fact that others or the government treat the couple as legal strangers. In our 2001 case on behalf of Sharon Smith, the horror was unmatched. Sharon’s partner of seven years, Diane...
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Kate Kendell
History will be made in the State of New York tomorrow, Sunday, July 24, 2011, when it becomes the seventh and largest jurisdiction in the country in which same-sex couples can legally marry. A huge, heartfelt thank you and congratulations to all of our New York colleagues, who worked so hard to win marriage equality. I am definitely in a New York state of mind, as you can see in my video below In solidarity,
My birthday is April 15. No one ever forgets my birthday, which is great of course, but it is also a sometimes bittersweet date since April 15 is always—until this year’s anomaly—tax day. Every year, I, like most other Americans, have dutifully filed my taxes by April 15. I’ve signed my tax return without giving it much thought, until this year. This year, Sandy and I signed our tax return together. And we filed our federal return as married. Why? Well, because we ARE married. After 15 years...
It started when we were at Sundance last year. Sandy and I heard the buzz about “The Kids Are All Right” and were happy to hear that the very talented Lisa Cholodenko had made a new film with three of our favorite actors—Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo. It had all the makings of a mainstream hit, which we were thrilled about. Then we heard a bit more of the premise of the film mainly revolving around the tired cliché of a lesbian sleeping with a guy (who saw that...
Desiree “Dez” and Sarah are high school seniors at Champlin Park High School (CPHS), which is in Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District. They’re also a couple, and both are out at school as lesbians, which takes a lot of courage given the conservative climate in their school district (this is Michele Bachmann’s district). There have been reports of serious anti-gay bullying, and a number of LGBTQ students in the area have committed suicide in the past year and a half. Every...
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the horrific death of Diane Alexis Whipple. For those of you who may not know or remember what happened to Diane, it was an unimaginable nightmare. On the late afternoon of January 26, 2001, Diane was mauled to death by two enormous dogs in the hallway of her San Francisco apartment building as she was bringing home groceries to make dinner that evening for herself and her partner of seven years, Sharon Smith. The brutality and terror of the attack were...