This particular amicus brief will argue the state laws commit “animus” — using the law to unjustifiably harm a group — against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, according to the press release.
Committing animus violates the Equal Protection Clause in the constitution.
Past briefs and cases regarding same-sex marriage haven’t addressed animus, but instead argued about marriage being a fundamental right or that sexual orientation discrimination deserves “heightened scrutiny,” according to the press release.
Sanders is working on this brief with Robbie Kaplan, the attorney who won United States v. Windsor, which gave federal recognition to same-sex marriages, and Dale Carpenter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.
Sanders and Carpenter were asked by Kaplan to join her because they are both top scholars in regards to animus.
“In our own scholarship and blogging, Dale and I have both explored in various ways how the legal concept of animus — that is, the desire to use the law to harm a group without sufficient justification — contributed to the enactment of anti-same-sex marriage laws in most of the country over a very short period of time,” Sanders said in a press release. “I’ve also written about how state laws that nullify existing legal same-sex marriages inflict a particularly unjustified injury.”
The three lawyers found each other via Facebook, according to the press release.
“Robbie added me as a friend after she read an essay I had written for SCOTUSblog,” Sanders said. “And she had previously worked with Dale. It was Robbie’s vision that the three of us should collaborate on a brief that would make this animus argument directly to the Supreme Court.”
The Human Rights Campaign will submit the brief in March and has invited the public to read and sign it ?beforehand.
The lawyers chose the HRC because of the organization’s efforts in ending anti-LGBT animus, according to the press release.
Thirteen states have yet to completely legalize same-sex marriages or recognize same-sex marriages from other states, as well as some counties in Alabama, which are refusing a federal court order to start issuing same-sex marriages.
Sanders has also written on other legal issues surrounding marriage equality and families headed by same-sex couples and is affiliated with IU’s gender studies and political science departments and the Kinsey Institute for Research in Gender, Sex and Reproduction, according to the press release.
Those wanting to read and or sign the brief can visit www.thepeoplesbrief.com.
Suzanne Grossman
