New York City, Mar.4 -- It's New York City's turn to join the battle for marriage equality! Tomorrow Lambda Legal will file a lawsuit in the Big Apple to win marriage for all same sex couples in New York State! Now, the energy and determination of the many members of our community who have been picketing for marriage licenses in New York City will be bolstered by Lambda Legal's awesome team of attorneys. Together, we can and will win this historic battle that is sweeping the nation.

We know the fight will not be easy. New York has not always been a leader in recognizing equal rights for our community. It was only last year that the state finally adopted a law to ban antigay discrimination in the workplace, and in housing and public accommodations. But the time for marriage equality is now, and New York must be a key battleground. Until now, the focus in New York has been on courageous pioneers in Upstate towns like New Paltz and Ithaca. Tomorrow Lambda Legal will bring the battle to the cultural and population hub of the state — and to what many people view as the most important city in the world.

This latest Lambda Legal lawsuit is one of many chapters in our national battle to win marriage equality. Even as we file the New York City case, Lambda Legal's lawyers are working on our latest round of briefing in our New Jersey marriage lawsuit. We're hard at work, with our colleagues from NCLR and the ACLU, fighting in court on behalf of gay couples who have married in San Francisco. We're preparing to enter the fray in New Mexico, where more than 50 couples were issued marriage licenses two weeks ago. We're gearing up for a legal battle for marriage equality in Washington State. And, of course, we're still vigorously pursuing our docket of cases and public education campaigns for LGBT parents, safe schools for LGBT students, an end to discrimination in the workplace and so much more.

As I write this, the Lambda Legal team is litigating, or preparing to litigate, marriage lawsuits in five states. That's up from one state (New Jersey) three weeks ago, when the world changed overnight as San Francisco started to issue marriage licenses. Four new states in three weeks is an extraordinary challenge for our team of lawyers and our volunteer law firms. And it's an expensive challenge. As you probably know, it costs lots of money to litigate in even one new state, never mind four. And it costs even more for us to use these lawsuits to win in the court of public opinion, as well as in the courts of law. Our litigation and public education funds are being stretched to the limit. But with President Bush and his extreme-right allies trying to write antigay discrimination into the Constitution — and our community determined to fight back — we have no choice. The moment is now. Please click here to help us pay for this unprecedented litigation offensive by Lambda Legal.

As we file this latest marriage lawsuit, our work to win the hearts and minds of the American people is being advanced dramatically by Lambda Legal's new "Judging Discrimination" campaign. The campaign is deploying newspaper ads and many other tools to reveal the right wing's lies about so-called activist judges. With our bold new move in New York City, the stakes are even higher than they were when I wrote to you about the "Judging Discrimination" campaign just a couple of days ago. So please go to our special campaign web section and get involved today.

Today we move a decisive step closer to marriage equality for every lesbian and gay couple in this country.

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