LOS ANGELES - The ACLU of Southern California applauds the California Supreme Court's decision affirming the validity of second-parent adoption, a process that allows unmarried couples, including lesbian and gay couples, to establish a legal relationship with the couples' children. The ACLU and other civil rights submitted amicus briefs in the case, which was decided in an opinion announced today.

"This decision treats same-sex couples and their families fairly and respectfully, and prevents harm to the thousands of children whose well-being and security, and whose rights to child support, inheritance, health insurance and other benefits, were threatened by the San Diego court's misreading of the adoption laws," said Martha Matthews, Bohnett Attorney at the ACLU of Southern California.

The Supreme Court's decision strongly endorses second-parent adoptions as authorized by California's adoption statutes. Six out of seven California Supreme Court Justices voted to reverse a decision of the California Court of Appeal in San Diego, which had caused confusion and uncertainty among thousands of California families, by holding that California's adoption laws do not permit second-parent adoptions.

The majority opinion by Justice Werdegar clearly recognized that children of same-sex and other unmarried couples have the same needs for security, stability and legal recognition of actual parental relationships as all other children: "Second parent adoption can secure...legally recognized parentage for a child of a nonbiological parent who otherwise must remain a legal stranger," and can provide "the security and advantages of two parents for some of California's neediest children."

The Court also pointed out the availability of second-parent adoptions "has created settled expectations among many different types of adoptive families," including not only same-sex and unmarried couples who have children through artificial insemination, but families who have adopted children from foster care and 'kinship' adoptions in which a grandparent or other relative becomes a child's second legal parent.

In California, thousands of second parent adoptions have been granted over the past fifteen years, but no appeal court had ruled on their validity until this case arose. In recent years, the concept of second-parent adoption has spread throughout the country. California has now joined eight other jurisdictions in which appellate courts have approved second-parent adoptions, including the District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. Also, three state legislatures, California, Connecticut, and Vermont, have enacted adoption statutes that explicitly permit same-sex partners to adopt.

SANTA ANA, CA - The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed suit today to enjoin the City of Santa Ana from implementing a count of mail-in ballots for a neighborhood traffic plan which residents of the French Court section of the city feel unfairly disenfranchises them on the basis of property ownership. In addition, residents of the Logan section, many of whom are directly affected by the traffic plan, which includes a barrier across Washington Avenue at Poinsettia, are also being disenfranchised.

Concerned with what they described as heavy traffic congestion along a major street, residents of the historic French Park section of Santa Ana proposed setting up barriers to reduce the flow of traffic into their area. After meeting with residents of French Park as well as residents of the predominantly working class French Court area to discuss an upcoming neighborhood ballot to approve a trial version of the "French Park Neighborhood Traffic Plan," the city of Santa Ana mailed ballots to eligible voters in French Park and French Court. The voters approved the traffic plan on a trial basis by a 66 to 60 vote. However, with few exceptions, only property owners were declared eligible to vote on the traffic plan; home owners were allotted one vote while residents of apartments, which are concentrated in the French Court section, were not allowed to vote - only the apartment owners were given a vote on the traffic plan. Additionally, individual condominium owners are not allowed to vote, instead the condominium association as a whole is given one vote. This resulted in a disproportionate number of votes in the more affluent French Park section.

"It is outrageous to think that people are being told that they can't vote unless they own property," said Peter Eliasberg, Managing Attorney with the ACLU/SC. "It turns the whole concept of one person one vote on its head. People have a right to a vote whether they live in old colonial revival homes or apartment buildings, and I think the facts are clearly on our side."

There are approximately 289 households in the French Park area compared to 850 households in the French Court neighborhood. Yet a total of 236 ballots were mailed out to people in French Park while French Court received only 111 ballots, in other words, approximately 82% of the households in French Park received a ballot, while 11% of the households in French Court did.

"As condominium owner, I am not given an individual vote because the current voting rules only allocate one vote per condominium association," said French Court resident, Wade Little. "There is a gross disproportion between the numbers of votes allocated to French Park and French Court."

Josephine Andrade, a resident of the Logan neighborhood, was not allowed to vote on the traffic plan because the city's Public Works Agency did not classify her neighborhood as an "impacted area" even though she lives less than three blocks from one of the temporary barriers that were installed.

"Since the Public Works Agency installed the barrier, I have had difficulty passing through the pedestrian sidewalk at the Washington barrier," said Andrade. "I am a person living with a disability and often transport myself around the neighborhood with my wheelchair. I live less than three blocks from the barrier yet I did not receive a ballot and am not entitled to vote in the French Park Traffic Plan election."

The ACLU of Southern California is seeking to enjoin the counting of mail-in ballots until a more equitable voting scheme is set up and also prevent the city from holding any election related to the traffic plan where the vote is restricted on any basis other than age or residence of the City of Santa Ana.

The current ballots must be postmarked by Friday, July 25th.

"It is amazing to me that someone had the nerve to draw up this voting scheme," said Eliasberg. "We're not going to harken back to the days when only a 'landed class' could participate in a democracy."

LOS ANGELES - In an historic decision with wide ranging implications, the U.S. Supreme Court today struck down a Texas law that makes some kinds of sexual intimacy a crime, but only for gay people. The decision overrules the court's 1986 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick, which was widely condemned for treating gay people as second-class citizens. It was hailed by the American Civil Liberties Union as a major milestone in the fight for constitutional rights.

The ACLU, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, Lawrence v. Garner, along with a broad array of groups including the National Center for Lesbian Rights, AFL-CIO, Parents Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays, the Alliance of Baptists, Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Interfaith Alliance and the National Association of Social Workers.

'This is a tremendous victory for anyone who believes government has no business peering into the bedroom of consenting adults,' said Martha Matthews, Bohnett Attorney with the ACLU of Southern California. 'The Court has finally stepped into the twenty-first century with this decision; sexual intimacy between adults, no matter what their sexual orientation, is not a crime and today the Court agreed with that assertion. This decision will make an extraordinary impact on our society and it is a huge step in the battle for equality for gays and lesbians throughout the country.'

In sweeping language, the Court said the Constitution protects the right of gay people to form intimate relationships and 'retain their dignity as free persons.' Gay people, the Court said, have the same right to 'define one's concept of existence, of meaning, or the universe, and of the mystery of human life,' that heterosexuals do. The Bowers decision, the Court said, 'demeans the lives of homosexual persons.'

Since 1986, lower courts have relied on Bowers v. Hardwick to take away or limit custody to gay parents and to uphold firing or refusing to hire gay people. Bowers has frequently been invoked in legislative debates as a reason not to protect gay people from discrimination.

In an eighteen page opinion, the Court held that the Texas law violates the fundamental right to privacy protected by the U.S. Constitution. The decision means that similar laws against sexual intimacy in the 12 other states that have them are also invalid. These include laws in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma that apply only to gay people as well as laws in Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Utah, which make 'sodomy' a crime for heterosexual consenting adults as well as same-sex consenting adults.

'Justice Brandeis said over seventy-five years ago that the 'right to be let alone' is the right most valued by civilized people, and most Americans agree,' said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU's national office. 'This decision is all the more important because it comes at a time when the right to privacy is under one of the greatest assaults it has ever faced.'

The Court overruled its 1986 decision in Bowers v. Hardwick in unusually strong terms. 'Bowers was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today,' the Court said. Bowers was an ACLU challenge to Georgia's 'sodomy' law, which applied to all couples. In Bowers, the Court held that the right to privacy did not invalidate Georgia's sodomy law.

Although Georgia's sodomy law applied to straight and gay couples, explained Steven R. Shapiro, Legal Director for the ACLU's national office, 'the Court treated it as a case about the constitutionality of laws making same-sex intimacy a crime.' The lower courts, Shapiro said, 'understood Bowers to permit discrimination against gay people in criminal laws and in many other areas as well. This decision establishes that the state has no place in anybody's bedroom, straight or gay.'