Maine Lawyer Credited in Fight for Gay Marriage
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, NYT
PORTLAND, Me. — Most Americans have never heard of Mary Bonauto. But inside the tightknit world of gay legal advocacy, Ms. Bonauto is a quiet celebrity — a lawyer and mother of twins who some say is almost single-handedly responsible for the same-sex marriage cases now pending before the Supreme Court.
“No gay person in this country would be married without Mary Bonauto,” said Roberta Kaplan, who will go before the justices on Wednesday to argue one of the cases.
As the top civil rights lawyer for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD, based in Boston, Ms. Bonauto has spent more than a decade plotting a careful strategy to advance gay marriage rights. She prompted Vermont to create civil unions in 2000, won the 2003 case that made Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex marriage and last year persuaded a federal appeals court that the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to gay couples, is unconstitutional.
Yet in a quirk of fate, Ms. Bonauto is watching her life’s work this week from the court’s spectator seats.
(More here.)
PORTLAND, Me. — Most Americans have never heard of Mary Bonauto. But inside the tightknit world of gay legal advocacy, Ms. Bonauto is a quiet celebrity — a lawyer and mother of twins who some say is almost single-handedly responsible for the same-sex marriage cases now pending before the Supreme Court.
“No gay person in this country would be married without Mary Bonauto,” said Roberta Kaplan, who will go before the justices on Wednesday to argue one of the cases.
As the top civil rights lawyer for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, or GLAD, based in Boston, Ms. Bonauto has spent more than a decade plotting a careful strategy to advance gay marriage rights. She prompted Vermont to create civil unions in 2000, won the 2003 case that made Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex marriage and last year persuaded a federal appeals court that the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to gay couples, is unconstitutional.
Yet in a quirk of fate, Ms. Bonauto is watching her life’s work this week from the court’s spectator seats.
(More here.)
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