Same-Sex Marriage Lawyer Bonauto Speaking at UMaine April 6
Contact: Mazie Hough, (207) 581-1225
ORONO — Mary Bonauto, lead counsel in the controversial same-sex civil marriage court case in Massachusetts and director of the Civil Rights Project at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) since 1990 will speak at UMaine, Wednesday, April 6.
Appearing from 12:15-1:30 in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union, Bonauto will speak on “The Future of Marriage Equality in New England: Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine.”
Part of Pride Week at UMaine and sponsored by the UMaine Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program, the brown bag lunch talk is free and open to the public.
Bonauto, a Maine resident, concentrates her law practice on impact litigation for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, as well as people living with HIV or AIDS. She has litigated widely in the state and federal courts and agencies of the six New England states since 1990.
In 1999, she and two Vermont lawyers won a ruling in the case of Baker v. State of Vermont, establishing that same-sex couples are entitled to the same benefits and protections of civil marriages. The ruling prompted the Vermont legislature to enact the nation’s first “civil union” law for same-sex couples.
Bonauto also was lead counsel in Goodridge versus the (Massachusetts) Department of Public Health, which resulted in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declaring that prohibiting civil marriage for same-sex couples is unconstitutional.
Bonauto is a graduate of Hamilton College and Northeastern University School of Law. She serves on the Family Law Steering Committee of the Boston Bar Association and is the North American co-chair of the International Lesbian and Gay Law Association. She also is a member of the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Working Group on Racial Profiling.