2014 玛丽-L-博纳托

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Mary L. Bonauto
Civil Rights Lawyer | Class of 2014
Breaking down legal barriers based on sexual orientation and gender identity to equal treatment under the law for all, and working to secure the freedom to marry for same-sex couples and the protections, obligations, and dignity marriage affords.


Portrait of Mary L. Bonauto
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Title
Civil Rights Lawyer
Affiliation
Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders
Location
Boston, Massachusetts
Age
53 at time of award
Area of Focus
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Website
GLAD: Mary Bonauto
Published September 17, 2014
ABOUT MARY'S WORK
Mary L. Bonauto is a civil rights lawyer whose powerful arguments and long-term legal strategies have led to historic strides in the effort to achieve marriage equality for same-sex couples across the United States. The Civil Rights Project Director at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders(GLAD) since 1990, much of her early work focused on adoption and parenting, censorship, hate crimes, and discrimination in jobs and public accommodations.

Mindful of the risks of loss and political backlash when social reform litigation advances ahead of public understanding, Bonauto and her GLAD colleagues initially pursued an incremental, state-based strategy to secure government marriage licenses for same-sex couples in the New England states. Bonauto and Vermont colleagues formed a critical partnership in 1997, which is widely acknowledged as a pivotal time and place to challenge a state’s exclusion of gay and lesbian couples from marriage. The Vermont Supreme Court’s ruling in Baker v. Vermont (1999) was the first to hold that same-sex couples must be provided all of the same protections and obligations provided to married couples, and the state legislature established the first civil union law in the nation in 2000 to comply with that ruling. GLAD’s subsequent filing of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health in Massachusetts, relying again on state constitutional guarantees of equality and liberty, resulted in the 2003 landmark decision that made that state the first to extend marriage equality to same-sex couples. Bonauto’s constitutional arguments in Goodridge articulated the breadth of the practical and social harms imposed by the state’s exclusion on real families and their children. In defending the marriage ruling from attempts to substitute civil unions, she drew on painful lessons from our nation’s past, most notably the history of unjust “separate but equal” doctrines as substitutes for racial and gender equality, and the Massachusetts high court was the first to reject civil unions as a substitute for marriage. The Goodridge ruling, the transformative effect of same-sex couples marrying on the public’s views, and subsequent legal (in Connecticut), legislative (in Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire), and ballot-based (in Maine) victories all provided a solid foundation and roadmap for future strategies across the nation, including at the federal level.

In 2009, Bonauto led a team from GLAD and private law firms in the first strategic challenge to section three of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and argued that the federal government’s non-recognition of the lawful and rapidly growing number of marriages unconstitutionally denied same-sex couples more than 1,000 federal protections and obligations usually available to married persons. Her case—Gill v. Office of Personnel Management—provided the first federal court wins in challenges to DOMA (in 2010 and 2012 rulings), and served as an important model for United States v. Windsor, the landmark case that ultimately resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court striking down DOMA in 2013 and on which she served as a strategist and external coordinator of friend-of-the-court briefs. In the name of equal treatment and dignity for all people, and in concert with other litigators and advocates across the country, Bonauto is breaking down legal barriers based on sexual orientation and influencing debates about the relationship between the law and momentous social change more broadly.

BIOGRAPHY
Mary L. Bonauto received a B.A. (1983) from Hamilton College and a J.D. (1987) from Northeastern University School of Law. She has been the Civil Rights Project Director at the Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) since 1990. Since 2013, she has been the Shikes Fellow in Civil Liberties and Civil Rights and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School.



Mary L. Bonauto
民权律师 | 2014级
打破基于性取向和性别认同的法律障碍，使所有人在法律下获得平等待遇，并努力确保同性伴侣的婚姻自由以及婚姻所带来的保护、义务和尊严。


Mary L. Bonauto的画像
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标题
公民权利律师
所属机构
同性恋倡导者和捍卫者协会
工作地点
波士顿, 马萨诸塞州
年龄
获奖时为53岁
关注领域
公民权利和公民自由
网站
GLAD：玛丽-博纳托
发表于2014年9月17日
关于玛丽的工作
Mary L. Bonauto是一位民权律师，她强有力的论据和长期的法律策略使全美同性伴侣在实现婚姻平等的努力中取得了历史性的进展。自1990年以来，她一直担任同性恋倡导者和捍卫者(GLAD)的民权项目主任，她早期的大部分工作集中在收养和养育子女、审查制度、仇恨犯罪以及工作和公共场所的歧视。

考虑到当社会改革诉讼领先于公众理解时的损失和政治反弹的风险，博纳托和她的GLAD同事们最初追求一种渐进的、以州为基础的战略，以确保政府为新英格兰各州的同性伴侣颁发结婚证。博纳托和佛蒙特州的同事们在1997年形成了一个关键的伙伴关系，这被公认为是挑战一个州将同性恋伴侣排除在婚姻之外的关键时间和地点。佛蒙特州最高法院在贝克诉佛蒙特州一案（1999年）中的裁决首次认定，必须为同性伴侣提供与已婚夫妇相同的所有保护和义务，州立法机构于2000年制定了全国第一部民事结合法，以遵守该裁决。GLAD随后在马萨诸塞州提出的Goodridge诉公共卫生部案，再次依靠州宪法对平等和自由的保障，导致2003年的里程碑式的裁决，使该州成为第一个将婚姻平等扩展到同性伴侣的州。博纳托在古德里奇案中的宪法论证阐明了该州的排斥对真正的家庭和他们的孩子所造成的实际和社会危害的广度。在捍卫婚姻裁决不受企图替代民事结合的影响时，她吸取了我们国家过去的痛苦教训，最明显的是不公正的 "分离但平等 "理论替代种族和性别平等的历史，马萨诸塞州高等法院是第一个拒绝以民事结合来替代婚姻的。古德里奇的裁决，同性伴侣结婚对公众观点的转变，以及随后的法律（在康涅狄格州）、立法（在佛蒙特州、缅因州和新罕布什尔州）和基于投票（在缅因州）的胜利，都为全国各地，包括联邦一级的未来战略提供了坚实的基础和路线图。

2009年，博纳托带领一个来自GLAD和私人律师事务所的团队对联邦《婚姻保护法》（DOMA）第三条提出了第一个战略挑战，并认为联邦政府不承认合法的和迅速增长的婚姻数量是违宪的，剥夺了同性伴侣的1000多项联邦保护和通常提供给已婚人士的义务。她的案件--吉尔诉人事管理办公室案--提供了联邦法院在挑战《捍卫婚姻法案》方面的第一场胜利（2010年和2012年的裁决），并成为美国诉温莎案的重要模式，该案具有里程碑意义，最终导致美国最高法院在2013年推翻了《捍卫婚姻法案》，她在该案中担任战略家和法院之友简报的外部协调人。以所有人的平等待遇和尊严的名义，并与全国各地的其他诉讼律师和倡导者合作，博纳托正在打破基于性取向的法律障碍，并更广泛地影响关于法律和重大社会变革之间关系的辩论。

个人简历
Mary L. Bonauto在汉密尔顿学院获得学士学位（1983年），在东北大学法学院获得法学博士学位（1987年）。自1990年以来，她一直是总部设在波士顿的同性恋倡导者和捍卫者（GLAD）的民权项目主任。自2013年以来，她一直是哈佛大学法学院公民自由和民权领域的谢克斯研究员和法律讲师。