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For Immediate Release
August, 26 2014, 12:00pm EDT
Contact:
Steve Smith, ACLU National, 212-519-7829 or 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Erik Roldan, Lambda Legal, 312-545-8140; eroldan@lambdalegal.org
Seventh Circuit Hears Oral Arguments Seeking Marriage for Same-Sex Couples in Indiana and Wisconsin
CHICAGO
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in lawsuits seeking to strike down discriminatory marriage bans in Indiana and Wisconsin. The three-judge panel included Richard Posner, Ann Claire Williams and David F. Hamilton. Attorneys from Lambda Legal argued on behalf of five plaintiff couples from Indiana and attorneys from The American Civil Liberties Union argued on behalf of thirteen plaintiff couples from Indiana and Wisconsin.
"As public support for marriage equality continues to swell across the nation, we are excited to be here today, making the case for Indiana and Wisconsin couples who simply want the freedom to marry and make that public, lifetime commitment to the ones they love," said James Esseks, Director of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project. "We believe that, every day, we are one step closer to that freedom being extended to all loving couples, and the ACLU will not stop working until we make marriage equality a reality in every state in the country."
Fujii v. Governor was filed on March 14, 2014 by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, the national ACLU, and the Lemieux Law Office of Indianapolis on behalf of six couples, a widow, and two children of same-sex parents. One of the plaintiffs, Midori Fujii, lost her wife, Kris Brittain, in 2011 after a two-year struggle with ovarian cancer. After Brittain's death, under Indiana law Midori was considered a legal stranger and could not make decisions about Brittain's funeral. Because their California marriage is not recognized in Indiana, Fujii was also required to pay more than $300,000 in state inheritance tax on all of the property that her wife left to her, including their shared home. If Fujii had been in an opposite-sex marriage she would have paid no inheritance tax on the property.
Wolf v. Walker was filed in Wisconsin on February 3, 2014 by the American Civil Liberties Union, challenging Wisconsin's discriminatory ban on same-sex marriage on behalf of eight couples seeking the freedom to marry or to have their out-of-state marriages recognized. Two of the plaintiffs, Kami Young and Karina Willes of West Milwaukee, were legally married last year in Minnesota and have a newborn daughter. Only Young, however, as the biological mother, is recognized as a legal parent on the birth certificate.
Baskin v. Bogan was filed by Lambda Legal on March 10, 2014 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Shortly thereafter, Lambda Legal filed a motion seeking immediate relief for Niki Quasney, Amy Sandler and their two children ages 3 and 1. Five years ago, Niki was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, enduring multiple surgeries and years of chemotherapy. After nearly 14 years together, the couple married in Massachusetts last year. In two decisions issued in April and May, the court ordered the State of Indiana to recognize their out-of-state marriage. On June 25th, U.S. District Court Judge Richard L. Young ruled that Indiana's discriminatory ban on marriage for same-sex couples is unconstitutional. Two days later, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals granted Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller's emergency motion to stay the freedom to marry for all Hoosiers achieved through Lambda Legal's victories in Baskin v. Bogan, and also consolidated the case with two other marriage cases in Indiana, Lee v. Abbott and Fujii v Governor. After Attorney General Greg Zoeller attempted to block those victories, on July 1st, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order compelling the State of Indiana to continue to recognize the marriage of Lambda Legal plaintiffs Amy Sandler and Niki Quasney while the case proceeds.
"Courts across the country have ruled in favor of love, freedom and justice for same-sex couples, and we're hopeful that this court will affirm our plaintiffs' commitment to each other. Some of our plaintiffs are advanced in age, some have children, and some are battling extreme medical circumstances. They are just a small sample of Hoosier families that urgently need the protections of marriage as soon as possible." said Camilla Taylor, Marriage Project Director for Lambda Legal. "The legal precedent for striking down discriminatory marriage bans is growing almost every week and with each victory, Indiana's ban on marriage for same-sex couples becomes increasingly unjustifiable."
Read more about the families in the ACLU's case here:
https://www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights/midori-fujii-et-al-v-indiana-governor-et-al
https://www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights/wolf-and-schumacher-v-walker
Read more about the families in Lambda Legal's case here:
https://www.lambdalegal.org/take-action/love-unites-us/indiana
James Esseks will be arguing for the American Civil Liberties Union in Walker v. Wolf. He is joined by Hans J. Germann, Gretchen E. Helfrich and Frank Dickerson from the law firm of Mayer Brown. Kenneth Falk, Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana will argue in Midori Fujii et al v. Indiana governor et al.
Paul D. Castillo, Staff Attorney, and Camilla Taylor, Marriage Project Director, are handling the case Baskin v. Bogan for Lambda Legal. They are joined by Barbara Baird of the Law Office of Barbara J. Baird in Indianapolis, Indiana, as well as Jordan Heinz, Brent Ray, Melanie MacKay, Dmitriy Tishyevich and Scott Lerner of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Amnesty Urges COP30 Attendees to 'Resist Aligning With' Trump Climate Crisis Denial
The group's leader called for rejecting "attempts to curtail funding for renewable energy projects" along with "the bullying efforts by the USA and others to weaken policies and regulations to combat climate change."
Nov 05, 2025
Nearly 10 months after President Donald Trump ditched the Paris Agreement for a second time, a leading human rights organization on Wednesday urged the remaining parties to the landmark treaty to defy his dangerous example when they come together next week for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil.
"Amnesty International is urging governments to resist aligning with the Trump administration's denial of the accelerating climate crisis and instead demonstrate true climate leadership," said the group's secretary general, Agnès Callamard, in a statement. "In the face of President Trump's rejection of science coupled with the intensified lobbying for fossil fuels, global leaders must redouble their efforts to take urgent climate action—with or without the US."
Callamard, who plans to attend COP30, stressed that "the global climate crisis is the single biggest threat to our planet and demands a befitting response. The effects of climate change are becoming more pronounced across the whole world. We confront increasingly frequent and severe storms, wildfires, droughts, and flooding, as well as sea-level rise that will destroy some small island states."
"COP30 in Brazil presents an opportunity for collective resistance against those trying to reverse years of commitments and efforts to keep global warming below 1.5°C," she continued, referring to a primary goal of the Paris Agreement. "The fact that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere soared by a record amount last year should ring alarm bells for world leaders at COP30."
Further elevating fears for the future, the UN Environment Programme warned Tuesday that Paris Agreement parties' latest pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions—officially called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—could push global temperatures to 2.3-2.5°C above preindustrial levels, up to a full degree beyond the treaty's key target for this century.
Greenpeace demands world leaders agree on a global response plan at #COP30 as a new major UN report warned the global temperature is projected to rise to 2.3-2.5°C above pre-industrial era global temperatures, putting the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5°C at risk in the short-term.
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— Greenpeace International 🌍 (@greenpeace.org) November 4, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Oil Change International highlighted in a report released last week that the United States—which is responsible for the biggest share of planet-heating pollution since the Industrial Revolution—plus Australia, Canada, and Norway are now "overwhelmingly responsible for blocking global progress on phasing out oil and gas production."
The group's global policy lead, Romain Ioualalen, said that "10 years ago in Paris, countries promised to limit warming to 1.5°C, which is impossible without putting an end to fossil fuel expansion and production. The rich countries most responsible for the climate crisis have not kept that promise. Instead, they've poured more fuel on the fire and withheld the funds needed to put it out."
"The fact that a handful of rich Global North countries, led by the United States, have massively driven up their oil and gas production while people around the world suffer the consequences is a blatant mockery of justice and equity," Ioualalen added. He called on governments attending COP30 "to deliver a collective roadmap for equitable, differentiated fossil fuel phaseout dates, and address the systemic barriers preventing Global South countries from transitioning to renewable energy, including finance."
Some experts are concerned that Trump—who's pursuing a pro-fossil fuel agenda that includes but is far from limited to exiting the Paris Agreement—may interfere with the talks, even though a White House official confirmed to Reuters last week that he doesn't plan to send a delegation to Belém.
The official said that Trump made his administration's views on global climate action clear in his September speech at the UN General Assembly—during which the president said the fossil fuel-driven crisis was "the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world," and the scientific community's predictions about the global emergency "were wrong" and "were made by stupid people."
Pointing to Trump's global tariff war that was debated before the US Supreme Court on Wednesday, the official added that "the president is directly engaging with leaders around the world on energy issues, which you can see from the historic trade deals and peace deals that all have a significant focus on energy partnerships."
As CNN reported Tuesday:
This practice of linking trade and climate so closely is an innovation of the Trump administration, said Kelly Sims Gallagher, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University who worked on US climate negotiations with China for the Obama administration.
In the absence of US leadership, she said that China, which is the world's top emitter, may seek to assume more of a prominent, steering role at the talks. The European Union is also likely to take a strong role, though internal rifts have emerged within the EU regarding how aggressively to cut its own emissions.
While Gallagher and other experts who spoke with CNN don't necessarily expect that COP30 will feature the same kind of disruptive behavior that Trump engaged in during last month's International Maritime Organization meeting to delay a new set of global regulations to slash shipping industry emissions, they acknowledged that it is possible. Already, the Tufts professor suggested, Trump's abandonment of the Paris treaty appears to be having an impact.
"I think there's an undeniable fact, which is that with the US withdrawal for a second time, it's definitely seeming to undermine ambition," Gallagher said. "I think it's just getting harder to make the case that global ambition is going to rise without pretty substantial engagement from the United States."
Despite not sending a high-level delegation to the COP30 Climate Summit in Brazil, the presence of the US will still be felt by negotiators there. The US will be the elephant in the room, and could seek to disrupt the talks from afar, depending on how they're trending... www.cnn.com/2025/11/04/c...
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— Andrew Freedman (@afreedma.bsky.social) November 4, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Callamard argued Wednesday that those attending COP30 "must push back against attempts to curtail funding for renewable energy projects and resist the bullying efforts by the USA and others to weaken policies and regulations to combat climate change."
"Humanity can win if states commit at COP30 to a full, fast, fair, and funded fossil-fuel phase-out and just transition to sustainable energy for all, in all sectors, as recently confirmed by the International Court of Justice's recent advisory opinion," she said. "These commitments must go hand-in-hand with a significant injection of climate finance, in the form of grants, not loans, from states that are the worst culprits for greenhouse gas emissions."
"Crucially, states must take steps to protect climate activists and environmental defenders," the Amnesty leader added. "This is the only way to secure climate justice and protect the human rights of billions of people."
According to an annual Global Witness report published in September, at least 142 people were killed and four were confirmed missing last year for "bravely speaking out or taking action to defend their rights to land and a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment," bringing the total to at least 2,253 land defenders slaughtered or disappeared since the group started tracking such cases in 2012.
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Trump Under Pressure to Ditch Nuclear Plans as Putin Preps for Possible Tests
“To limit new weapons development in China or Russia, one of the best things the US can do is maintain the taboo on testing and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty," said one expert.
Nov 05, 2025
More than a dozen US senators on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump to abort plans for a resumption of nuclear weapons testing, a call that came as Russian President Vladimir Putin directed his senior officials to draft proposals for possible new nuke tests in response.
“We write to you today to express grave reservation about any action to resume nuclear weapons testing," 14 Democratic senators led by Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM), ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a letter to Trump.
"We request that you personally provide clarification," the lawmakers added. "The decision to resume nuclear weapons testing would be geopolitically dangerous, fiscally irresponsible, and simply unnecessary to ensure the ability of the United States to defend itself."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)—who signed the letter—also introduced emergency legislation last week aimed at preventing Trump from resuming nuclear weapons tests.
Although no country is known to have tested a nuclear weapon since North Korea last did so in 2017, Trump last month ordered the Pentagon to prepare for a resumption of reciprocal testing.
“The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country,” Trump falsely wrote on social media. “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”
TASS reported Wednesday that Putin instructed the Russian Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry, intelligence agencies, and civilian bureaus to submit proposals "on the possibility of preparing for nuclear weapons tests" in the event that other countries resume testing.
Russia has not tested a nuclear weapon in its modern history. The former Soviet Union's final nuclear test took place in 1990 and the successor Russian state has adhered to a moratorium ever since.
Last week, Congresswoman Dina Titus (D-Nev.) introduced a bill to prohibit new US nuclear weapons testing. Titus accused Trump of putting "his own ego and authoritarian ambitions above the health and safety of Nevadans."
Supporting Titus' bill, Tara Drozdenko, director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement Wednesday that “there is no good reason for the United States to resume explosive nuclear testing and it would actually make everyone in this country less safe."
"We have so much to lose and so little to gain from resuming testing," she continued. "New explosive testing by the United States would be to make a political statement, with major consequences: It would shatter the global freeze on nuclear testing observed by all but North Korea and give Russia, China, and other nuclear powers the green light to restart their own nuclear testing programs."
“The United States has not conducted a nuclear detonation test since 1992," Drozdenko noted. "Even those advocating for testing acknowledge there is no scientific need to test to maintain the US nuclear arsenal. In fact, Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently said that the updated systems can be tested without conducting full nuclear detonations."
“To limit new weapons development in China or Russia, one of the best things the US can do is maintain the taboo on testing and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty," she added. "This treaty with on-site verification measures would be the best way to ensure that countries are not clandestinely testing nuclear weapons.”
The United States and Soviet Union came dangerously close to nuclear war on multiple occasions during the Cold War, most notably amid the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and, later, during then-President Ronald Reagan's first administration in the early 1980s.
Weeks after becoming the first country to develop nuclear weapons in 1945, the United States waged the world's only nuclear war, dropping atomic bombs on the defenseless Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killing hundreds of thousands of people, mostly civilians.
According to the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, Russia leads the world with 5,449 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, followed by the US with 5,277 warheads, China with around 600, France with 290, and the United Kingdom with 225. Four other nations—India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea—also have nuclear arsenals of between 50-180 warheads each.
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6 Million Who Rely on Federal Heating Aid Poised to Suffer As Temps Drop and Trump Shutdown Drags On
If funding is not restored to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, said one expert, "pipes will freeze, people will die."
Nov 05, 2025
As more than 40 million households that rely on federal food aid are forced to stretch their budgets even further than usual due to the Trump administration only partially funding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program under a court order, many of those families are facing another crisis brought on by the government shutdown: a loss of heating support that serves nearly 6 million people.
President Donald Trump has sought to eliminate the $4 billion Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), proposing zero funding for it in his budget earlier this year and firing the team that administers the aid.
Though Congress was expected to fund the program in the spending bill that was supposed to pass by October 1, Democrats refused to join the Republican Party in approving government funding that would have allowed healthcare subsidies to expire and raised premiums for millions of families, and Trump and congressional Republicans have refused to negotiate to ensure Americans can afford healthcare.
The government shutdown is now the longest in US history due to the standoff, and energy assistance officials have joined Democratic lawmakers in warning that the freezing of LIHEAP funds could have dire consequences for households across the country as temperatures drop.
Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), told the Washington Post on Wednesday that even if the shutdown ended this week, funding would not reach states until early December—and more families will fall behind on their utility bills if lawmakers don't negotiate a plan to open the government soon.
“You can imagine in a state like Minnesota, it can get awfully cold in December. We’re all just kind of waiting, holding our breath.”
"People will fall through the cracks,” Wolfe told the Post. “Pipes will freeze, people will die.”
With heating costs rising faster than inflation, 1 in 6 households are behind on their energy bills, and 5.9 million rely on assistance through LIHEAP.
The Department of Health and Human Services generally released LIHEAP funds to states in the beginning of November, but energy assistance offices in states where the weather has already gotten colder have had to tell worried residents that there are no heating funds.
Officials in states including Vermont and Maine have said they can cover heating needs for families who rely on LIHEAP for a short period of time, and some nonprofit groups, like Aroostook County Action Program in northern Maine, have raised money to distribute to households.
But states and charities can't fill the need that LIHEAP has in past years. Minnesota's Energy Assistance Program received $125 million from the federal government last year that allowed 120,000 families to heat their homes.
Aroostook County Action Program has provided help to about 200 households in past years, while LIHEAP serves about 7,500 Maine families.
The state has already received 50,000 applications for heating aid and would be preparing to send $30 million in assistance in a normal year.
“You can imagine in a state like Minnesota, it can get awfully cold in December,” Michael Schmitz, director of the program, told the Post. “We’re all just kind of waiting, holding our breath.”
NEADA told state energy assistance officials late last month to plan on suspending service disconnections until federal LIHEAP funds are released, and US Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) led more than four dozen lawmakers in urging utilities to suspend late penalties and shutoffs for federal workers who have been furloughed due to the shutdown.
States reported that they'd begun receiving calls from people who rely on LIHEAP as Americans across the country went to the polls on Tuesday and delivered Democratic victories in numerous state and local races.
The president himself said the shutdown played a "big role" in voters' clear dissatisfaction with the current state of the country.
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