Never had advocacy efforts moved as quickly as they did in the last year and a half around marriage equality, said Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal.
“More than 20 years of work by so many people and so many organizations had coalesced very suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly,” Cathcart said Feb. 26 after receiving the Justice in Action Award from the Mazzoni Center. He addressed a crowd of about 100 lawyers and LGBT advocates at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel.
Notable guests included out Philadelphia judges Abbe Fletman, Ann Butchart and Dan Anders.
Michael Williams, a Philadelphia lawyer who helped draft the 2002 bill that added protections for gender identity to the city’s antidiscrimination laws, also earned a Justice in Action Award. Williams’ son and daughter-in-law attended the ceremony. Williams thanked his family, including his husband, Tony Rodriguez, for supporting him in his work.
Nellie Fitzpatrick, director of the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs, gave a short speech about Mazzoni Center’s addition of legal services to its medical repertoire.
“The Mazzoni Center legal-services department really raises the bar,” she said. “It’s the only program in Pennsylvania that specifically provides free or low-cost services to low-income LGBT people.”
Ticket sales from guests at the ceremony supported Mazzoni Center’s legal work. The center raised more than $40,000, doubling last year’s amount.
“Having the ability to provide free legal support is something we’ve been extremely passionate about,” Nurit Shein, CEO of Mazzoni Center, told PGN. “The fact that we’ve reached our fundraising goal means people agree with us that this is something that needs to happen.”
“The two heroes we’re celebrating today have given of themselves selflessly for many years to support and uphold the community,” she added.
Cathcart recalled being in the U.S. Supreme Court in June when the decision was announced in Obergefell v. Hodges, which created marriage equality nationwide.
“The court was packed with primarily lesbian and gay attorneys from Washington, D.C.,” he said. “The court does not spend much time on social niceties. They come in, they bang the gavel, they sit down and say, ‘And now giving the opinion in Obergefell.’ Suddenly, it was beyond quiet. Everyone was excited, but terrified. The decision was announced and all of a sudden, people started to breathe all over the courtroom. Many other people like me started sobbing.”
The audience at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel applauded and laughed as Cathcart joked, “Sobbing in public is really not my usual M.O.”
Cathcart also shared his connection to Philadelphia and admiration for Mazzoni Center. He will celebrate 24 years at the helm of Lambda Legal this month, but Cathcart grew up in Pomona, N.J., and said he looked to Philadelphia as a lifeline for gay culture and a feeling of community when he came out in the 1970s.
“The city was a lifeline for me and a lot of people that I knew as we were figuring out our lives and stumbling toward consciousness,” he said, noting he spent a lot of time at Giovanni’s Room.
Cathcart praised the Mazzoni Center for becoming a “real and thriving civil-rights institution.”
“I know in some corners the word ‘institution’ is not always seen as a compliment,” he said. “I think building institutions is really the best thing we can do for the future.”
He said the organizational support at Lambda Legal allows it to have a docket of over 113 cases, fighting a broad range of issues facing LGBT people and those affected by HIV/AIDS. Lambda Legal and others have had success recently arguing that existing laws already protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity as an extension of protections from discrimination based on sex.
Cathcart also reminded people that the work for full LGBT equality does not end just because the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality. He advised people to pay attention to their state legislatures and fight against religious-freedom bills that could offer a license to discriminate, an anti-trans bills like the one proposed in South Dakota, among others.