Aug. 31, 2013

National LGBT Bar Association hosts 25th annual gala

The National LGBT Bar Association's Lavender Law conference in San Francisco on Aug. 23 was headlined by Roberta Kaplan, who represented plaintiff Edie Windsor in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that recently overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act. Kaplan told the crowd her client had received a $408,000 check from the U.S. Treasury earlier that day, refunding the estate taxes she was forced to pay because her marriage wasn't recognized by the federal government. William Singer, general counsel of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender bar association, received the organization's first annual Leading Practitioner Award from its executive director, D'Arcy Kemnitz. Singer called upon young lawyers to volunteer for the bar, and he honored his departed friends who fought AIDS and lost. In a speech, Kristin Beck, a veteran who served for 20 years as a Navy SEAL and came out as transgender this year, lamented the lack of military lawyers at the gala and told the assembled attorneys she should be honoring their service, instead of the other way around. "It's easy for people to applaud a Navy SEAL because we fight in public. The fight you've fought over the last 25 years has been a silent one," she said. Beck called upon the audience to keep fighting and remain patient. She said she'd met people from all over the world, and the experiences made her believe that people are more fundamentally similar than they realize. "We have a lot of paths up this mountain top, but the top is really small, and we'll all be together when we get there." -— Joshua Sebold