Lawyer that brought down DOMA sets her sights on Mississippi law

by Austin Stallings
Journalism Intern

The attorney who won Edie Windsor's U.S. Supreme Court DOMA case in 2013, Roberta Kaplan, has now set her sights on taking down Mississippi’s HB 1523.

The sweeping law allows anyone to claim sincerely held religious beliefs to refuse service to same-sex couples, LGBT people, and unwed mothers – anyone who has ever had sex outside of a monogamous one-man, one-woman "traditional" marriage.

Kaplan today filed a federal lawsuit against HB 1523 challenging the recusal provision of the law, which allows state officials to refuse to perform weddings for or even issues marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

“While HB 1523 states that ‘the authorization and licensing of any legally valid marriage [shall] not [be] impeded or delayed as a result of any recusal,’” the motion states, according to Buzzfeed's Chris Geidner, “it leaves the manner of doing so completely up to the person who ‘recused’ him or herself, and provides no enforcement mechanism for making sure that there is no delay or impediment.” 

Kaplan is again representing the same couples who challenged Mississippi's same-sex marriage ban, and won. She is also co-author of Then Comes Marriage: United States V. Windsor and the Defeat of DOMA.

Yesterday, the ACLU filed a separate federal lawsuit against HB 1523, challenging the entire law.

The Gayly 5/11/2016 @ 11:45 a.m. CDT