Unprecedented Coalition of Over 60 Asian American Organizations File Brief in Support of Marriage Equality
On Wednesday, September 26, 2007, a team of Asian American attorneys and advocates in Los Angeles and San Francisco announced today that a coalition of over 60 local, state, and national Asian American organizations will be filing a legal brief in support of equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. For a copy of the brief, click here.
The amicus ("friend of the court") brief is being filed in the consolidated California Marriage Cases, currently pending before the California Supreme Court. The California Marriage Cases are historic lawsuits urging the California courts to end the exclusion of loving and committed same-sex couples from marriage. The same-sex couples and their supporters ask the Court to hold that the state's current law denying lesbian and gay persons the freedom to marry violates the Constitution's guarantee of equality. The amicus brief filed today by the coalition of Asian American organizations seeks to support basic fairness for same-sex couples and their families, drawing from the Asian American community's own past struggle with marriage discrimination in the state of California.
The amicus brief was supported by many of the nation's largest and most prominent Asian American civil rights advocates, lawyers associations, social service organizations, and community groups. Supporting organizations represented nearly every major urban area in the state with a significant Asian American population, including San Francisco, the Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego. Together these organizations also reflect the broad diversity of the Asian American community, including Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, South Asian, and Southeast Asians.
The legal brief team, many of whom donated their time and expertise to this project as volunteers or "pro bono" lawyers, included (in alphabetical order): Robert Chang, professor of law at Loyola Law School (Los Angeles) and currently visiting at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law; Kevin Fong, Esq., Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP (PWSP); Alex Fukui, Esq., API Equality-LA, Alice Kwong Ma Hayashi, Esq., PWSP; Victor Hwang, Esq., Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach (APILO); Deanna Kitamura, Esq., API Equality-LA; Karin Wang, Esq., Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC); Andy Wong, API Equality/Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA); Brian Wong, Esq., PWSP; and Doreena Wong, Esq., API Equality-LA. Many others at APALC, API Equality-LA, API Equality-SF, APILO, and PWSP were also involved with the brief and outreach.
For the press release, click here.
For a summary of the brief including a list of supporting organizations, click here.