The Human Rights Campaign has announced a campaign to gather signatures from members of the public on a marriage equality brief to the Supreme Court.
Calling the project "The People's Brief," HRC has created a page on their site where supporters can provide their name, address, and phone number to be added to the brief. The document will be entered into record and distributed to the Supreme Court Justices.
Numerous other organizations are likely to submit briefs as well. The 2013 DOMA and Prop 8 cases attracted dozens of briefs from major corporations, state officials and members of Congress, municipalities, professional groups, religious organizations, and legal experts.
The lead signature on the brief is that of Edie Windsor, the plaintiff in the the United States v. Windsor case. The brief itself is written by Roberta Kaplan, the attorney who represented Windsor, along with Dale Carpenter of the University of Minnesota School of Law and Steve Sanders of the Indiana University Maurere School of Law.
In the document, Roberta Kaplan argues that there is no reasonable justification for state bans on marriage equality. "The inability of the states defending these laws to offer justifications that are in any way rationally related to advancing legitimate governmental purposes is, in and of itself, an independent reason why these laws must be struck down," Kaplan writes. "It is also further evidence that it was animus, rather than a legitimate governamental interest, that motivated these laws in the first place."
The signatures must be submitted to the court by March 6.
