Jenny Pizer, chief legal officer at Lambda Legal, speaks at a celebration Wednesday in West Hollywood marking the 50th anniversary of the LGBTQ+ civil rights law firm.
The organization's first case in 1973 was in New York on behalf of its founder, Bill Thom, who successfully challenged a judicial ruling that the organization wasn't entitled to nonprofit status because it was "neither benevolent nor charitable." The next year, it successfully challenged a ban on a gay student organization at the University of New Hampshire. Throughout the decades it has been involved in most of the groundbreaking litigation involving LGBTQ+ rights, including 2003's Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down anti-sodomy laws, and the cases that granted same-sex couples the right to marry.
Wednesday's celebration was held in New York and livestreamed to The Lot at Formosa in West Hollywood.
-- Jessica Lynn Murray, Associate Legal Editor
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