Same-sex couples prepare for appeals hearing
Dr. Sophy Jesty, left, and Dr. Valeria Tanco, of Knoxville, Tenn., speak outside the Davidson County courthouse in Nashville, Tenn. The couple, married in New York in 2011, are part of a group that filed a lawsuit to force Tennessee to recognize same-sex marriages from other states where it is legal. A federal judge on Friday, March 14, 2014, said that Tennessee must recognize the marriages of three same-sex couples while their lawsuit against the state works its way through the court system. (AP Photo/The Tennessean, Shelley Mays, File)
For 10 months, Regina Lambert has been coordinating media interviews for her star plaintiffs: a lesbian couple with a newborn daughter who want family health insurance and marital rights.
They’ve talked to local TV stations, state newspapers and national wire services.
But when a TV reporter put a microphone on Lambert earlier this year and asked why the case was important to her, the longtime corporate lawyer who has never done activist work before took a moment to answer.
“In that short period of time, I remember thinking, ‘You cannot ask people to put their lives out there and to share so much and open themselves up and not be willing to answer the question,’” she recalled.
So, she was honest.
Lambert and her partner, Jackie Stanfill, have been together 25 years. They married in Vermont last summer.
If Lambert’s team wins this same-sex marriage case, the state of Tennessee will have to recognize her union along with the marriages of the three couples in the lawsuit and scores of other gay and lesbian couples across the state.
This week, a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati is slated to hear oral arguments in the case — or at least on a preliminary injunction in the case.
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