She was born in Baltimore in 1910.

After graduating from New York’s Hunter College, Murray was denied admission into the University of North Carolina and Harvard University’s law schools because of her race and gender, respectively.

She received her degree in law from the University of California, Berkeley, and went on to teach American Studies at Brandeis University in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

Murray co-founded the Women’s Rights Law Reporter, one of the first publications in the legal field to focus on women’s rights.

She was also involved with the NAACP, contributing legal assistance in Brown v. Board of Education in 1961. During this time, Murray studied at Yale Law School and became the first African American to earn a doctoral degree in law (J.S.D.).

Murray was also an accomplished poet and writer.  She authored the acclaimed book, Proud Shoes, which was a personal history of her family spanning from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.

In 1977, she became the first African American female Episcopalian priest. She served in the church until her retirement in 1984.

She died of cancer in 1985.  She was 74.

In legal documents filed late Thursday, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal and the ACLU signaled a significant break with past legal tactics that avoided taking the fight to federal court.

Some gay rights activists have been concerned that a conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court could broadly rule against same-sex marriages.

The lesbian center, Lambda Legal and the ACLU now say they support the legal arguments of former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson and David Boies. The two prominent litigators filed the federal lawsuit in May alleging that California’s ban violates federal anti-discrimination protections.

“We just couldn’t believe this was happening to us. This was the nightmare that we hoped we’d never have to live through,” said Teresa Rowe, who grew up in Clovis, California, but now lives in the Bay Area with her partner of four years, Kristin Orbin.

“Unfortunately, because Kristin suffers from epilepsy, trips to the hospital are pretty common for us, which is why we filled out the legal paper work to make sure I would be able to be with her and make
emergency decisions about her care. But the hospital wouldn’t let me see Kristen and ignored my advice about her treatment. They ended up giving her the exact medication I repeatedly asked them not to give her.”

On May 29, 2009, Rowe and Orbin attended the “Meet in the Middle” rally in support of marriage for same-sex couples in Fresno. After the couple completed a 14-mile march in 90 degree heat, Orbin collapsed in a seizure. The couple experienced hostility from the ambulance driver, but Rowe was ultimately allowed to accompany Orbin to Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno. However, when the couple got the hospital, the driver would not allow Rowe to accompany Orbin into the emergency room even though Orbin had been in and out of consciousness, and Rowe was familiar with her medical history and care.

Rowe repeatedly asked hospital employees to allow her to see Orbin and talk to a physician about her care but was refused. She volunteered to have Orbin’s legal paperwork naming Rowe as her health care agent faxed to the hospital but was told that it wouldn’t do any good.

When she asked that she at least be allowed to pass along the message that Orbin not be given the
drug Ativan, she was told the message would be conveyed. If the message was given to those treating Orbin, it was ignored because Orbin was given the drug, which she didn’t need and which causes her unnecessary pain.

Meanwhile, when she was awake, Orbin was also asking to be allowed to see Rowe. Although they were both told that no visitors were allowed in the area where Orbin was being treated, other patients were receiving guests. After being separated for several hours, Orbin finally saw her doctor. She
complained to him, and Rowe was eventually allowed to be with her.

“Until the California Supreme Court upheld Prop 8, Kristen and Teresa were planning to get married. In this climate, hospitals must be especially diligent to protect same-sex couples from discrimination,” said Elizabeth Gill, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California. “As these events so painfully demonstrate, no matter what hoops same-sex couples jump through to
protect their relationships, these kinds of horrible things will continue to happen as long as couples are denied the recognition and respect that only comes with marriage.”

The letter sent by the ACLU and NCLR charges that it was a violation of state law for the hospital to discriminate against the couple based on their sexual orientation, as well as to refuse to recognize Rowe’s legal authority, which was authorized by Orbin’s advance health care directive.

The letter also notes that hospitals must post and follow a patient’s bill of rights that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation and grants patients the ability to designate visitors of their choosing and to decide who is able to make emergency decision about their care. The letter urges Community Medical Centers immediately to affirm their commitment to inclusive and sensitive medical care for LGBT patients, and to take a number of steps to carry out that commitment.

“Discrimination in healthcare settings is still far too common for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people,” said Jason Schneider, MD, President of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA). “No one is served when partners are barred from visitation and kept from participating in conversations about their loved one’s care. It’s bad for doctors who are kept
from potentially life threatening information, it’s bad for partners who are left waiting hopelessly in the waiting rooms and it’s especially traumatic for patients who need the love and support that only their partners can provide to help them through health care emergencies.”

The hospital has until June 22 to respond.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and other national organizations issued a statement Wednesday saying they think the U.S. Supreme Court is not ready to issue a favorable ruling on the issue.

The statement came the day after Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, who represented opposing sides in the 2000 Bush v. Gore challenge, announced they had filed a federal court challenge to California’s gay marriage ban.

Olson and Boies said the suit was filed on behalf of two gay men and two gay women.

Olson said that he hopes the case will wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction against California’s Proposition 8 until the case is resolved.

Gay rights activists in California want to win marriage back for same-sex couples by going back to voters.

The state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to uphold the gay marriage ban.

Several dozen couples turned up at the court Thursday morning after the blogosphere erupted with rumors and speculation the decision would be coming down.

The court has a 90-day self-imposed turnaround rule in issuing rulings after oral arguments in a case are heard. Rulings are handed down on Mondays and Thursdays.

That leaves just three more days for the court to issue its decision.  With the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, rulings scheduled for that day will be released on Tuesday, or the decision could come on Thursday.  The final day under the rule would be June 1.

Prop 8 was passed by voters in November by a slim 52 percent. The initiative by conservative groups bans same-sex marriage in the state.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights immediately filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the vote.  They were joined by additional suits by the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles and a legal opinion by California Attorney General Jerry Brown.

The Supreme Court heard the case on March 5.

For the court there are three issues to be determined: Is Proposition 8 invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than an amendment to, the California Constitution?; Does Proposition 8 violate the separation of powers doctrine under the California Constitution?; and If Proposition 8 is not unconstitutional, what is its effect, if any, on the marriages of same-sex couples performed before the adoption of Proposition 8?

Arguing for the litigants was Shannon Minter, the NCLR attorney who earlier successfully argued the gay marriage case before the high court.

Minter told the court that Prop 8 should be ruled invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution’s core commitment to equality for everyone.

He also argued that Proposition 8 improperly attempted to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities.

Minter said that under the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by a simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.

The California Constitution establishes two ways that it can be altered. A substantial change to the principles or basic structure of the constitution, called a “revision,” requires the involvement of the legislature and a more deliberative process. A less substantial change, called an “amendment,” can be enacted by a simple majority vote of the people.

The California Supreme Court should strike down Proposition 8 because it is, in fact, a revision, Minter argued.

The principle of equal protection, which prevents the majority from oppressing minority groups, is central to our constitution and our democratic system of government. Proposition 8 would limit that fundamental principle of equality for LGBT Californians and undermine the very purpose of equal protection for everybody he told the court.

Attorney Christopher Krueger, representing California Attorney General Jerry Brown, told the court his office disagreed with Minter’s argument that Prop 8 was an improper revision of the constitution. But Krueger said the measure should still be struck down.

Krueger argued that Prop 8 was unconstitutional because it conflicted with an “inalienable right” to liberty that the state Supreme Court found last year included the right of same-sex couples to marry.

Representing the conservative groups behind Prop 8 was Kenneth Starr who led the inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Starr argued that the will of the people must be respected by the court saying the groups challenging Prop 8 wanted the court to ignore  “inalienable right” of the people to change the constitution.

“The people do have the raw power to define the rights,” Starr told the court. “We govern ourselves – and we may govern ourselves unwisely.”

He also argued that the measure also invalidated the 18,000 same-sex marriages between the time gay marriage was declared legal and voters went to the polls in November.

Two separate groups are not taking any chances should the court fail to overturn Prop 8 and are preparing voter measures to overturn it in 2010.

The California Secretary of State has given the group Yes on Equality until August 17 to collect the nearly 700,000 signatures needed to qualify its initiative for the 2010 ballot. It would ask voters to repeal Prop 8. The other, by two college students, would strike the word “marriage” from all state laws.

©365Gay.com 2009

The letter demands that Knox County Schools, Metro Nashville Public Schools, and the Tennessee Schools Cooperative unblock the Internet filtering category designated “LGBT” so that students can access political and educational information about LGBT issues on school computers.

“When I found out about this web filtering software, I wasn’t looking for anything sexual or inappropriate – I was looking for information about scholarships for LGBT students, and I couldn’t get to it because of this software,” said Andrew Emitt, a 17-year-old senior at Central High School in Knoxville, in a statement released by the ACLU.

“Our schools shouldn’t be keeping students in the dark about LGBT organizations and resources,” Emitt said.

In its letter, the ACLU gives the districts and the Tennessee Schools Cooperative until April 29 to come up with a plan to restore access to the LGBT sites or any other category that blocks non-sexual websites advocating the fair treatment of LGBT people by the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year.

If that deadline is not met, the ACLU will file a lawsuit, the letter warned.

“Students at Knox County and Metro Nashville schools are being denied access to content that is protected speech under the First Amendment as well as the Tennessee state constitution,” said Tricia Herzfeld, Staff Attorney with the ACLU of Tennessee.

“This kind of censorship does nothing but hurt students, whether they’re being harassed at school and want to know about their legal rights or are just trying to finish an assignment for a class.”

The Internet filtering software used by Knox County and Metro Nashville school districts blocks student access to the websites of many well-known national LGBT organizations, including: Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays; The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network; the Human Rights Campaign; The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation; Dignity USA; Marriage Equality USA; and the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry.

In its demand letter, the ACLU notes that websites that urge LGBT persons to change their sexual orientation or gender identity through so-called “reparative therapy” or “ex-gay” ministries – a practice denounced as dangerous and harmful to young people by such groups as the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics – can still be easily accessed by students.

“One of the problems with this software is that it only allows students access to one side of information about topics that are part of the public debate right now, like marriage for same-sex couples,” said Karyn Storts-Brinks, a librarian at Fulton High School in Knoxville.

“Students who need to do research for assignments on current events can only get one viewpoint, keeping them from being able to cover both sides of the issue.  That’s not fair and can hinder their schoolwork,” she said.

No federal or state law requires school districts to block access to LGBT sites.  Tennessee law only requires schools to implement filtering software to restrict information that is obscene or harmful to minors.

About 80 percent of Tennessee public schools, including those in the Knox County and Metro Nashville districts, use filtering software provided by Education Networks of America, and the software’s default setting blocks sites ENA categorizes as LGBT the ACLU said.

The ACLU said it believes that most of the 107 Tennessee school districts that use ENA’s filtering software keep the LGBT category blocked.  ENA blocks access to a wide category of “LGBT” sites described on the organization’s website as ” Sites that provide information regarding, support, promote, or cater to one’s sexual orientation or gender identity including but not limited to lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender sites.

“When public schools only allow access to one side of an issue by blocking certain websites, they’re engaging in illegal viewpoint discrimination,” said Hedy Weinberg, Executive Director of the ACLU of Tennessee.

“Over a hundred other school districts in Tennessee use the same filtering software used in Metro Nashville and Knox County, and we’re eager to find out whether any of those systems are also violating students’ Constitutional rights by restricting access to LGBT sites.”

The lawsuit cites the cancellation of a student production of “Rent” over its gay characters and a Facebook video in which football players at the school threaten a female student.

Court papers filed by the ACLU in Orange County Superior Court run 36 pages, claiming discrimination at the school violates federal and state equal protection provisions.

“School and district officials, through their action and inaction, have not only failed to take steps to address this hostile environment, but they have contributed to it and given sanction to it,” the suit alleges.

The Newport-Mesa Unified School District said the lawsuit contains factual errors. 

In the video three members of the football team threaten to rape and kill the teenage girl.  The ACLU claims the school did little to punish the teen player or to protect the girl – even after her parents repeatedly expressed concerns about her safety.

In February, drama advisor Ron Martin complained that principal Fal Asrani ordered him to drop “Rent” because of its gay characters. The play was reinstated later in the month following media coverage of the controversy.

The lawsuit alleges that homophobia is rampant at the school.  It complains that teachers and student use gay slurs and quotes one student as saying the principal voiced opposition to gay marriage during an English class.

The ACLU is seeking damages, a filing process at the school for discrimination complaints, the establishment of diversity training for staff and students and a schoolwide survey of attitudes towards sexism and homophobia.

The homophobic harassment and bullying at the school typifies a rise in hostility toward LGBT students throughout California in the wake of the divisive campaign over Proposition 8, which eliminated the right of lesbians and gay men to marry, the ACLU said in a statement.

“The threats, intimidation and slurs directed toward students on the basis of gender and sexual orientation at Corona del Mar High School are part of a growing sexist and homophobic environment there that school administrators could have – and should have – stopped,” said Hector Villagra, director of the Orange County office of the ACLU. 

“Instead, these school officials amplified the hostile atmosphere by sending the message that the harassers can act with impunity, and by telling students who were the targets of threats and bullying that they would have to find ways to avoid it.”

The cloth wristband has words “Rainbows are gay” on it. 

Chris Quintanilla says it is the latest in several anti-gay experiences he has had at the school. After nothing was done, his mother went to the American Civil Liberties Union.

In a letter sent this week to Peoria Unified School District, the ACLU said that the principal violated Quintanilla’s constitutional rights, pointing to a 40-year-old landmark Supreme Court decision guaranteeing students’ free speech and expression. 

“When I asked my son’s principal why he wouldn’t be allowed to wear his wristband to school anymore, he said some teachers found it offensive,” said Natali Quintanilla, mother of the eighth grader.

“My son is honest and happy about who he is, and I love him and support his right to be himself. There are a lot of things teachers should be more concerned about than one little wristband – like educating our children.”

Quintanilla said that her son was harassed for being gay earlier this school year. When she asked to the principal to do something to prevent the harassment she said she was told “If he didn’t put it out there the way he does, he wouldn’t have much of a problem.”

The Supreme Court has held that students have a right to free speech at school, and that includes gay students. 

” The ACLU has won dozens of cases over the years where schools have tried to get away with illegal censorship,” said Elizabeth Gill, staff attorney for the ACLU national Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project. “A handful of teachers supposedly working themselves into a tizzy over one little wristband is hardly an excuse for violating Chris Quintanilla’s right to free speech.”

The ACLU letter refers to 1969’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court wrote, “It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights… at the schoolhouse gate.” 

The letter also pointed to a Florida case in which a high school principal had attempted to ban rainbows at school. In that case, a federal judge ruled last May that the school had violated students’ First Amendment rights. 

“When schools censor students like this, they are failing one of the most important civics lessons there is,” said Dan Pochoda, Legal Director of the ACLU of Arizona. “Schools should respect the Constitution and encourage all students – lesbian, gay, bisexual, and straight – to appreciate and exercise their freedoms, rather than illegally trying to silence them.”

The ACLU has given the school ten days to respond to its letter. The school has yet to respond.

But a lawyer for the Nassau County School Board said the group’s name, Gay-Straight Alliance, is against school policy.

Yulee High School students Hannah Page and Jacob Brock, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, are suing the school board to overturn its decision banning them from forming the club at school. Yulee is about 25 miles north of Jacksonville, near the Georgia state line.

U.S. District Judge Henry Adams Jr. said he would issue a ruling on a motion for a preliminary injunction “as soon as I can,” but gave Nassau County three days to submit additional written arguments. The students want an injunction to allow them to meet until the case goes to trial.

ACLU Attorney Robert F. Rosenwald Jr. argued that Page and Brock had been the target of anti-gay epithets and threats of violence at school and wanted to start the Gay-Straight Alliance to open a discourse among students.

Attorney Frank Sheppard, who represents the school board, said the district’s main complaint is the name of the group, saying it does not approve of groups dealing with sexual orientation and noted the school has an abstinence-based sex education curriculum.

“If they change the name and comply with Nassau County School Board policies they can meet,” he said.

The judge questioned Sheppard over the school’s objection to the name.

“A Gay-Straight Alliance, that covers everybody doesn’t it?” Adams asked.

After the hearing, Page said the group doesn’t want to change its name because it represents what the club is about.

“This school is ashamed of using the word ‘gay’ In this environment,” she said.

School officials had no problem with the idea of tolerance and rejecting bullying, Sheppard said, but they believe the club will be disruptive.

Rosenwald noted that the Fellowship of Christian Athletes meets on campus. He told the judge that an FCA booklet includes references to sexual issues, including a student pledge to remain sexually pure and an article about dealing with homosexuality in the locker room.

Sheppard said he was unaware of the document and Adams said he could have three days to respond to it.

Rosenwald asked for the injunction, noting that Brock, a junior, and Page, a freshman, might be out of school before the case is decided.

“These students are in a short window on this,” he said.

The ACLU recently won a similar case in Okeechobee. A judge there ruled schools must provide for the well-being of gay students and cannot discriminate against a Gay-Straight Alliance.

Rosenwald said the Okeechobee County School Board paid $326,000 in attorneys fees in the case.

A California court is being given a chance to correct the damage to equality perpetrated by the Proposition 8 vote.

A number of organizations, including the ACLU and Lambda Legal have filed suit regarding the ban.

Their argument is a simple one: an amendment that violates a fundamental principle of a constitution, protection of minority rights in this case, cannot be made by popular vote.

It must, instead, pass in the legislature.

It’s a long shot, primarily because the federal equal protection language specifically does not include LGBT rights. This would be creating a constitutional principle on the state level that exceeds the principle on the federal level.

Still, this State court wrote one of the most progressive decisions in American legal history and was an example to courts around the country. It is possible that they will stand up to the undoing of their work.

Those who oppose judicial activism will be unhappy with the possibility that a court can override a democratically determined course of action. However, one comment of Elizabeth Gill, a lawyer with the ACLU, is important to keep in mind: “A major purpose of the constitution is to protect minorities from majorities.”

If the court finds this to be the case, they will not be judicial activists, but judges who understand the role of law in a society where exclusion and intolerance, sadly, are a common theme.

Obama, despite his shameful dismissal of gay marriage, made clear that constitutions shouldn’t be used to take away rights. Here’s hoping that the court in California agrees with him.