Gay marriage pioneer chosen to argue Supreme Court case

Richard Wolf | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's date with same-sex marriage next month just became even more historic.

Lawyers for gay and lesbian plaintiffs Tuesday chose Mary Bonauto, the movement's pioneer who won the first case in Massachusetts in 2003, to present their main argument in court on April 28.

Bonauto, 53, is the civil rights project director for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, a Boston-based group that does most of its legal work in the New England area. She was brought in to assist in the case several months ago.

She will argue on behalf of Michigan and Kentucky couples seeking the right to marry in their home states. Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, a former assistant solicitor general in Washington with experience arguing before the Supreme Court, will argue for Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee plaintiffs whose marriages elsewhere are not being recognized in their home states.

The lawyers defending the states' same-sex marriage bans were selected earlier this month. Former Michigan solicitor general John Bursch will defend same-sex marriage bans in Michigan and Kentucky; Tennessee Associate Solicitor General Joseph Whalen will defend bans in Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio against recognizing marriages from other states.

Until Tuesday, lawyers for gay and lesbian couples had sought the Supreme Court's permission to break their side's arguments into four parts, so that four lawyers could get a chance to speak from the well of the marble courtroom. The court did not respond formally but encouraged the lawyers to choose just two, said spokeswoman Kathy Arberg.

Bonauto has been involved in most of the major court cases that have advanced the cause of gay and lesbian couples.

She was part of the legal team that won a 1999 case making Vermont the first state in the nation to legalize civil unions. She represented same-sex couples in the 2003 case Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that established marriage rights for gay couples in Massachusetts. And she won the first federal district and appeals court victories against the Defense of Marriage Act, before the Supreme Court followed suit in 2013.

Last year, she received a MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as a "genius grant," awarded annually to individuals "who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction."

Bonauto has sounded confident recently about the chances for success at the high court.

"We're at a point where it would be shocking if the Supreme Court said it was permissible to deny marriage licenses to gay couples," she told USA TODAY in an earlier interview.

But she also has recognized that winning marriage rights at the Supreme Court won't end the debate. Rather, it would be likely to lead to battles such as the current one raging in Indiana over the rights of religious believers to deny services to gay and lesbian couples.

"The last thing you can do is get off the field if you win," she said recently. "I don't discount for a second that there are going to remain powerful voices against us."