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PRESS RELEASE -- And Justice for All
Contact: David King, Communications Director
Phone: (202) 298-9362
Internet: justice@clark.net
America Online: AndJst4All@aol.com
Address: P.O. Box 53079
Washington, D.C. 20009
WWW: http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/orgs/aja/
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LLDEF Senior Staff Attorney and Civil Marriage Rights Advocate Will Offer Counsel to Board on Goals and Objectives of Organization
WASHINGTON, DC -- Evan Wolfson, senior staff attorney for Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund (LLDEF), has agreed to join the Advisory Board of And Justice for All (AJA).
Currently Director of the LLDEF Marriage Project, Wolfson is co-counsel for the lesbian and gay couples seeking the right to marry in Hawaii's landmark Baehr v. Lewin and is coordinating political and legal work in the nationwide fight for equal marriage rights. Founded in 1973, LLDEF is the nation's oldest and largest legal organization working nationally to defend and extend the civil rights of lesbians and gay men.
"As gay people fight to win and keep the freedom to marry, we must engage non-gay Americans on something they have never before been asked to think about: how denying us civil marriage reinforces inequality and harms our families," said Wolfson. "We must ask non-gay people for their support -- group by group, person by person -- as we defend against the right-wing political extremist attempts to shut down the public discussion before it has even begun. AJA can play an important role in the political organizing and educational efforts on marriage needed in every state now."
In addition to his work on the Marriage Project, Wolfson has championed military personnel fighting for the right to serve, New York City employees demanding equal health benefits and recognition for their partners, and a gay Eagle Scout challenging his expulsion from the Boy Scouts, the first test of New Jersey's gay rights law.
Wolfson has won cases for clients as diverse as a Florida deputy sheriff fired for being gay, a woman denied work as Dallas police officer because of the state "sodomy" law, and gay parents wishing to adopt children and preserve visitation rights, and people facing HIV discrimination.
A leader in areas such as constitutional law, "sodomy" law challenges, employment and civil rights, First Amendment rights, family law, and police misconduct/entrapment cases, Wolfson has published numerous articles on sexual orientation, HIV/AIDS, and civil rights issues, and is a frequent speaker on such topics. Wolfson also wrote Lambda's amicus briefs to the Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick and NGTF v. Bd. of Educ. of Oklahoma City.
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Pittsburgh, Wolfson graduated from Yale in 1978 with a B.A. in History and from Harvard Law School in 1983. Immediately before joining Lambda, Wolfson served in Washington, D.C. as Associate Counsel to Lawrence Walsh in the Office of Independent Counsel during the Iran/Contra hearings. Wolfson is adjunct professor of law at Columbia, and has also taught at Rutgers law school.
"Months, maybe years before a final Hawaii Supreme Court ruling in Baehr v. Lewin, religious extremist groups are going from state to state proposing legal barriers to prevent gay and lesbian Americans from legally marrying the person they love," said AJA Communications Director David King. "As with so many important issues of bisexual, gay, lesbian and transgendered civil rights, AJA views these actions as motivated by ignorance and misinformation. We're excited to have Evan, with his expertise on this and other legal issues, as a part of our guiding Advisory Board."
AJA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to achieving equality for bisexual, gay, lesbian and transgendered (b/g/l/t) people by mobilizing heterosexual allies in the fight for social justice.
