ACLU challenging "Amendment One" gay marriage ban

The ACLU announced today it will challenge last year's "Amendment One," a statewide constitutional ban on gay marriage, as part of an existing lawsuit for gay rights in adoptions. We wrote about the existing lawsuit for second-parent adoption rights, which includes a family from Greensboro. Here's the press release (below):

RALEIGH – Today the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation (ACLU-NCLF) announced plans to challenge North Carolina’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples by amending a federal lawsuit filed against the state last year on behalf of six same-sex couples and their children that challenges North Carolina’s ban on second parent adoptions. The announcement comes on the same day that the ACLU has filed a federal challenge to Pennsylvania’s marriage ban and the ACLU and Lambda Legal have announced a challenge to Virginia’s marriage ban.

The ACLU is asking North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper to agree to allow an additional claim challenging the state’s ban on marriage for same-sex couples to be added to Fisher-Borne v. Smith, a lawsuit filed last year in Greensboro in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina that challenges the state’s ban on second parent adoption, a process by which one partner in an unmarried gay or straight couple adopts the other partner’s biological or adoptive child. If the Attorney General’s office does not agree to the addition of the new claim, the ACLU will petition the court to allow the claim to be added.

Marcie and Chantelle Fisher-Borne, one of the couples in the case, have been together for 16 years and live in Durham. Each woman carried one of their two children -- a 5-year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy. They had a wedding in North Carolina 10 years ago and were legally married in Washington, D.C. in 2011, but their marriage is not recognized by North Carolina law. When their daughter was born, the couple met resistance from a hospital staff member who demanded their legal paperwork. If they were legally married in North Carolina, their family would be respected and such encounters could be avoided.

“Our children have two parents who love them dearly.  Like any parents, we want to be able to do everything we can to care for our children.  Our children deserve the security of having both Marcie and me as legally recognized parents, and marriage is the best way for us to provide that to them,” said Chantelle Fisher-Borne. “We declared our love and commitment to each other years ago, but the law in North Carolina does not recognize the life we have built together or allow us to share legal responsibility for the children we have raised together. We want to be married for many of the same reasons anyone else does – to do what’s best for our family, especially our children, and have our commitment to each other recognized by the law.” 

Marriage would help same-sex couples protect their children by ensuring that all children in the family are covered if one partner lacks health insurance, that families will stay together and children will not be torn from the only home they’ve known if something should happen to the biological or legally recognized parent, and that either parent will be allowed to make medical decisions or be able to be by their child’s bedside if one of their children is hospitalized.

“The past year has witnessed a sea change in the quest to secure the freedom to marry for all committed couples across the nation and in North Carolina,” said Chris Brook, Legal Director of the ACLU-NCLF. “From President Obama and Senator Hagan’s endorsements to the recent landmark Supreme Court decision declaring the so-called Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, support for the freedom to marry has moved forward by leaps and bounds.  Conversations are happening at dinner tables throughout our state with more and more North Carolinians agreeing that the rights and responsibilities that come with marriage should not be denied to loving and committed couples simply because they are gay or lesbian. Our announcement today is the next step in that conversation.”

The move to amend the North Carolina lawsuit comes less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in another ACLU case, United States v. Windsor, which found that the federal Defense of Marriage Act defining marriage as between one man and one woman was unconstitutional.

“Under DOMA, same-sex married couples have their lives burdened, by reason of government decree, in visible and public ways,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority in Windsor, adding that creating a “second-tier” status for same-sex couples “demeans the couple, whose moral and sexual choices the Constitution protects … [a]nd it humiliates tens of thousands of children now being raised by same-sex couples. The law in questions makes it even more difficult for the children to understand the integrity and closeness of their own family and its concord with other families in their community and in their daily lives.” 

Republican lawmakers in Raleigh spring an anti-abortion surprise

The News & Observer and WRAL News are reporting that the NC Senate has approved sweeping legislation to restrict abortions by tacking a variety of measures on a bill originally written to address the use of Islamic law in family courts.

The omnibus abortion law would reportedly:

• Require abortion clinics to meet licensure standards for ambulatory surgical centers, which is currently the case for only one clinic in the state;
• Prohibit plans under the federal health-care exchange from covering abortions;
• Require doctors to remain in the room for the duration of the procedure;
• Require abortion clinics to operate under "transfer agreements" with area hospitals;
• Prohibit abortions if the doctor knows the mother is seeking it because of the gender of the baby; and
• Allow an healthcare provider, not just a doctor or nurse, to opt out of providing abortions under a conscience clause.

The N&O and WRAL report that a final vote on the bill is expected in the Senate tomorrow and then in the House before the General Assembly breaks for the July 4 holiday.

Reaction from the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina and NARAL Pro-Choice NC was swift.

"This attempted sneak attack on women's reproductive rights is absolutely shameful," said Sarah Preston, policy director for ACLU NC. "Issues as vital and personal as access to comprehensive healthcare and doctor-patient relationships deserve to be debated in an open, public process — not hastily pushed through without notice and under the cover of night during a holiday week. These loathsome restrictions and the deceitful method through which the Senate tried to pass them are an obvious effort to not simply prevent women in North Carolina from having comprehensive access to much-needed healthcare, but to not even given them an effort to weigh in on legislation that will have wide-ranging impacts on women and doctors across the state."

NARAL Pro-Choice NC Executive Director Suzanne Buckley said, "North Carolina's anti-choice lawmakers are taking their cues from underhanded attacks on women's reproductive rights in Texas and Ohio. In the final minutes of marking up an unrelated piece of legislation, the Senate Judiciary committee swiftly tacked on every anti-choice piece of legislation introduced since January to this bill and sent the bill to the floor with no warning in a rare evening session."

ACLU: County commission violating C4GC's free speech rights

ACLU of North Carolina Legal Director Katherine Lewis Parker expresses concerns about the constitutionality of the Guilford County Commission's proposed citizen multi-media presentation policy in a letter to the board today:

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina Legal Foundation ("ACLU-NCLF")was contacted last week by Guilford County resident Jodi Riddleberger ("C4gc"). Ms. Riddleberger has requested our assistance in connection with a recent decision by the Guilford County Board of Commissioners ("the Board") to ban any and all multimedia presentations during prescribed public comment periods of Board meetings. After conducting an initial investigation, we have concerns that your Board is violating Ms. Riddleberger's rights under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Additional material after the jump:

Parker:

It appears that the county's actions with regard to Ms. Riddleberger, as well as the passage of the ban on multimedia presentations during public comment period constitute violations of the First Amendment. First, we believe that the general requirement that individuals can show videos only if approved and placed on the agenda is an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. Further, Chairman Alston's specific comments and actions against Ms. Riddleberger suggest that these new rules, while they appear to be content neutral, are a thinly-veiled disguise for impermissible content discrimination, or even viewpoint discrimination....

The actions of the chairman in response to Ms. Riddleberger's request to be placed on the December 1st agenda, as well as the language in the new proposed policy, suggest that the chairman has unbridled discretion to make decisions about who and whater material can be placed on the meeting agendas. There appear to be no standards in place to guide the chairman's actions. That is impermissible under the First Amendment.

Further, the decision to deny Ms. Riddleberger's request to be placed on the December 1st agenda and to show a video that appeared to relate specifically to board business, while noting that a request by the library would be approved, demonstrates that the chairman is making these decisions at least based on the content, and maybe the viewpoint, of the message. Content-based discrimination triggers strict scrutiny review — even higher than that for content-neutral regulations as described above. Under strict scrutiny, a regulation must be necessary to serve a compelling governmental interest by the least restrictive means available.... It seems unlikely that the county can meet this very heavy burden. Further, "[i]n its practical operation," the board's action and proposed policy may "go[] even beyond mere content discrimination," which is patently unconstitutional under the First Amendment.