LeslieCooper

All children need and deserve loving, stable families, which can come in many forms, including same-sex parent families. This is recognized by every major professional group dedicated to children's health and welfare, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and the Child Welfare League of America. And it is confirmed by more than three decades of scientific research showing that children raised by lesbian and gay couples fare no differently than those raised by heterosexual couples. All children deserve to have their families respected and protected by the law.

The ACLU and our allies are pursuing all avenues to achieve the freedom to marry nationwide, including advocacy in state legislatures, state court litigation (such as the ACLU's current litigation in New Mexico and Illinois), and federal court litigation such as this case. But besides the fight for marriage, we still have a lot of work to do in many states on a wide range of issues affecting the LGBT community such as getting basic protections against workplace and housing discrimination (indeed, PA has no such protections); creating safe schools for LGBT youth; protecting parent-child relationships; and respecting the gender identity of transgender people.

We are strategically bringing cases that we hope will ultimately bring the freedom to marry to everyone.
Thanks for asking about trans rights. This is an important priority area for the ACLU and an issue we've been working on, along with our ally organizations, for a long time. We have brought successful cases on behalf of transgender people in the areas of workplace discrimination, access to transition-related medical care, the ability to change gender markers on identity documents, and the right of transgender students to be themselves at school, among others. And we are working at the state and federal level in support of laws that would ensure equal and fair treatment of transgender people. There is still so much more to be done but we are making tremendous progress.

Not only PA. We have cases pending in state courts in New Mexico and Illinois. We are working in state legislatures in various states. And in addition to the PA federal case, we will be pursuing the freedom to marry in federal court in North Carolina and Virginia shortly. We are pursuing all avenues to achieve the freedom to marry. Here's a link to the ACLU's "Out for Freedom" page, which discusses our strategy. http://www.aclu.org/out-freedom.

Hi. I'm Leslie Cooper of the ACLU LGBT & AIDS Project. I look forward to talking with folks about our Pennsylvania marriage case.