Steven Thrasher

Edith Windsor, the day after a federal court first ruled in her favor

Edith Windsor, the octogenarian lesbian widow who successfully sued the federal government for over chariging her $363,000 in estate taxes, wants to take her case to the Supreme Court.

According to a press release from the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Windsor along with the ACLU and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison: "Edith 'Edie' Windsor, who sued the government for failing to recognize her marriage to her late spouse, Thea Spyer, asked the U.S. Supreme Court today to hear her challenge to the so-called "'Defense of Marriage Act' (DOMA)...In the meantime, Windsor will continue to defend her victory before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which has agreed to hear her case on an expedited basis."

Last month, the Voice reported about Windsor's victory in a federal district court here in New York. Although the Obama Administration has stopped defending DOMA, believing parts are unconstitutional, House Speaker John Boehner has directed the Bipartian Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) to keep defending it in federal court.

Asked by the Voice what she'd say to Speaker Boehner for seemingly wanting her to be the only person in America he wants to pay more taxes, she replied, " I think I'd rather not talk to him."

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Steven Thrasher

Pride month has just started, and yet over the course of May and just the first few days of June, the fight for gay marriage has arguably seen more progress in the last four weeks than in any time in history. In fact, if you're a journalist on the gay marriage beat who also writes about other things, it's been very hard to get other work done lately (not that we're complaining).

In just the past five business days, there have been three major deals blown to the Defense of Marriage Act (and other legal barriers to marriage equality) in the federal judiciary. Last Thursday, the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled DOMA was unconstitutional in Gill v. Office of Personnel Management , a case out of Boston in which a lesbian federal worker sued the U.S. government for not recognizing her legal Massachusetts marriage to her spouse; on Tuesday, the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to rehear that court's previous ruling which found that California's Proposition 8 unconstitutional, meaning the Supreme Court will either need to hear the case or allow LGBT Californians to marry again; and, here in New York, a federal district judge ruled yesterday that DOMA was unconstitutional in causing Edith Windsor, the 82-year-old widow of Thea Spyer, to pay $363,000 in estate taxes after the death of her wife which a heterosexual spouse wouldn't have had to pay.

The Voice went to speak to Windsor in person today, at a press conference in the offices of the NYCLU.

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Ian Culley

This week in the Voice, we talk to current and former law enforcement officers who have actually faced stop-and-frisk themselves when they are off-duty, walking home in their neighborhoods or driving around the city in their cars. These retired and active cops say that stop-and-frisk is such a common experience for young black and Latino men in New York City, that it's almost inevitable that men of color are stopped and questioned by a cop at some point -- even if they are officers.

With stop-and-frisk an increasingly hot topic in the news lately -- and an important battleground for the 2013 mayoral hopefuls trying to secure minority votes -- we thought we'd bring you some reflections on the policy and its implementation from some New York Police Department officers who actually conduct the stops.

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From New Settlement Parent Action Committee flier.

This afternoon, parent advocates in the Bronx are organizing a march that will start at a transportation hub in the borough, move to a suspensions hearing center onward to an early care education site, and then to an elementary school and a middle school. The final destination of the rally is a juvenile justice center.

This, they say, is a reflection of the path that all too many Bronx youth take today -- from school to prison.

A South Bronx group called the New Settlement Apartments Parent Action Committee is holding a rally today to shed light on some alarming statistics around the arrests that take place inside schools and to push the Dept. of Education to make policy changes that they say would better address behavioral problems and curb the rates of youth incarceration.

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Sam Levin

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio at an immigration event earlier this year.

The debate over the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk policy is in full swing this week with a proposal from the public advocate prompting a badmouthing match between the mayor and the elected official who hopes to replace him in 2013.

Yesterday, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, an expected mayoral candidate, launched a campaign to reform stop-and-frisk, urging Mayor Bloomberg to dramatically reduce the number of unwarranted stops. That led Bloomberg, via a statement from his deputy mayor, to criticize de Blasio and dismiss his ideas as out of touch with the realities of crime in the city. De Blasio kept the momentum going this morning with a conference call with reporters to, well, respond to the mayor's response to him.

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nylcu.org

New Yorkers are legally protected against discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, or disability -- which means people who fall under any of those categories cannot lose access to homes, jobs, and other services because of their racial, sexual, or physical identities.

Currently, however, there are no protections for New Yorkers who are transgender or express their gender differently from societal expectations and stereotypes.

And according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is pushing to change the discrimination laws to include this group, New York state is falling behind.

This week, the NYCLU released a report documenting discrimination in the state for transgender and gender non-conforming New Yorkers.

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