Transcript of BOND meeting of April 13, 1993 Mary Celeste, CLIP, speaker Introduction: Tonight we're really excited to be able to present someone in order to get geared up for the court hearing that's going to be happening on May 24. Basically what's going to be happening--and I'm not going to stomp on your turf here, Mary--but the court will be hearing the oral arguments on the injunction part of the Amendment 2 hearings. There's two parts to what's going to happen tonight. One is we're going to have a speaker who will talk about what's happening with the court case, what's going on, etc, what's going to happen, and try to bring us up to speed so we know what to expect. The second part of it is that later on during our business meeting we're going to talk about potential responses to what the outcome of the court case is. For example, if they do overturn Amendment 2, or the injuction part of it, what do we want to do if the amendment is going into effect. If we have a plan up front, that will give us a little time to prepare--not a lot, but a little--and so, with that in mind, I'll just go ahead and introduce Mary Celeste. She is on the board of directors of the Colorado Legal Initiative Project, she is the president of the Colorado Lesbian and Gay Lawyers Association, she is on the Denver Mayor's Comittee, a liaison with the gay community, and she is also on the board of directors of a very interesting organization that we're probably going to be hearing a lot more about in the next year, it's called CARE, Colo- rado Alliance to Restore Equality, which is sort of a statewide collection of-- like David Skaggs, who is on the board, political figures, business leaders, members of the Chamber of Commerce, and they're kind of looking at what's going on with Amendment 2 and strategizing, I know that. So, she knows what's going on with all of this legal stuff, and so I'll just let her take it from here and give us the lowdown. Mary Celeste: How many members of the BOND organization are here? I just want to give a per- sonal thank you to all those members because you were very instrumental on the court case. If you're not aware of how, I'll remind you. Or if you are aware I'll remind you. We were facing the injunction, and one of the issues or hurdles that we had to overrirde was the subject of irreparable harm. And if your position here in Boulder would have been that Mayor Durgin would have not enforced the ruling of Amendment 2, that would have eliminated one part of the argument for irreparable harm, so I spent some time with Jabe and Patty and we went back to the membership, and there was some conversation and discus- sion with CLIP, and we did get the support we needed, so I just wanted to give you a personal thank you. I'll just give you a little bit of background about how Colorado Legal Initiatives Project was formed about six months prior to the ruling on Amend- ment 2. It was a safety net, a what-if, so we were working on the legality of the ruling before it was even filed, and that's why we were able to file it within nine days of the ruling. There are two things going on--well, there's a lot of things going on, but two primary things are going on. One is procecure. (This is going to be a mini lecture on constitutional law and procedural law, so hold on.) The other is substantive, the substance of the case itself. Now, we know that legislation happened, that Amendment 2 passed and we filed an injunction. That was the first stage of what we planned to do. And that was to stop the enactment of Amendment 2. That comes under procedure. The next thing that happened was the state appealed the injunction. They are saying that we weren't entitled to receive this injunction. I'll get to the merits or substance of those arguments after I finish the procedure of the injunction appeal. Assuming for the moment that we win or they win, you can rest assured that there will be another appeal on the injunction. I'm not even talking about the case itself. However, the law would dictate that the results of the deci- sion on the inujunction itself is an interlocutory decree, which means that you can go no further. So they're not going to take an appeal to the injunction to the U.S. Supreme Court. It stops here. They're not going to be able to go further if we win, or we're not going to be able to go forward with an appeal if we lose. Now we get to the next point. In May there are oral arguments on the appeal. That's our opportunity to revisit some of the arguments as we put them in our briefs, as we put them in the document that we filed with the court reasserting our views. In October there is a trial on the merits, which means we are not looking at the injunction anymore, but we're looking at the facts of the case, the substance of the case, and a ruling will be made about the substance of the case, whether or not Amendment 2 is unconstitutional. The injunction only says that Bayless' decision only says that it is likely that it is unconstititional. In October Bayless again will have the trial and will hear testimony, and I'll get back to that in a minute, and rule on whether or not it's unconstitutional. Then we get to the appeal stage. Assuming for a moment that we win on the injunction or we lose on the injunction, we get to the trial date and we lose or we win, either side is going to appeal. It goes from where it's at now, which is the State Supreme Court, and it goes next to the Appeals Court. Let's assume that we win or we lose here, then the next place is the U.S. Supreme Court, which, fortunately for all of us, is in a state of change. OK, so this is the procedure that we follow. Now, to com- plicate the matter a little bit. This is the potential outcome for the injunc- tion hearing in May. Several things can happen. One, we can win, which means that Judge Bayless' decision is affirmed. They concur with what Judge Bayless' rational was for us winning, and I'll talk about what that rational was when we get to the substance. We can win, they affirm on different grounds. They don't agree with the rational of Judge Bayless, but they agree that the injunc- tion should be granted. So we win, they affirm Judge Bayless; we win, they affirm but on other grounds; we lose. That means overturn, that Bayless' deci- sion is overturned, they didn't like his rational. And then there are three other options. One, it can be remanded. Remanded means that the Colorado Supreme Court is unsure of a particular point of law or fact and wants the Judge, Bayless in this instance, to review some questions that they had. It's remanded back down to the lower court, which is the trial court, and Judge Bayless has to review and cover the points that the Supreme Court wants and then they'll make a decision. It could be affirmed in court, it could be overturned in cocrt, thy could like one part of what he said and not like another part. So, as you can see, the discretion about what's going to happen stricly lays with seven members of the panel, which is the Colorado Supreme Court. Fortunately, the Colorado Supreme Court is considered to be closer to left than to right, which is one of the reasons we chose to go the state court system as opposed to the federal court system. So that's what can happen to the injunction. We can win, it can be affirmed; it can be affirmed on Bayless' ground; it can be affirmed on new grounds; we could lose; it could be over- turned; it could be remanded back down to Bayless for clarification; and it could be confirmed in court and overturned in court. Questioner: If we lose at that stage, does #2 become law? Celeste: Yes. It does, because it lifts the restraints of the injunction, or the restraining order. Questioner: I thought the October trial was going to be decided by Judge Bayless. Celeste: It is. Questioner: Well, then the next step would be (words lost here) the supreme court, not the federal appeals court. Celeste: What federal appeals court? You mean this court at this point? Questioner: Yes. Celeste: It goes to the State Supreme Court, the Colorado Supreme Court. That's the appeals court in this instance. It's the same court that's hearing the injunc- tive appeal. Is that what you're saying? Questioner: Then after the Colorado Supreme Court... Celeste: There's no federal court it goes through. It goes through this supreme court. to get into the federal court system you go through the U.S. Supreme Court. We specifically avoided the federal system. Questioner: You do want to avoid the federal supreme court? Celeste: Well, we can't avoid the U.S.Supreme Court, and that's a federal court, but, yes, you avoid the federal system. (question cannot be heard) Celeste: That's right. The composition of the panel that's reviewing the injunction is more to the left than the federal court system would have been in review. Question: This is being contested under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, is that correct? Celeste: That is the substance of the argument. What we said here--I'm going to give you the basis of the injunction, which goes along with the procedure. Unless there's another question, I'll move to that. Questioner: Are there any indications that if other states try to do the same thing that the ruling will be less applicable than if we use the federal system? Celeste: No. In fact, the state court rulings are better precedence in state court decisions and state courts look at other state courts as well. I don't think it would be anything more or less. For example, one of the bases for the injunction and one of the ways that we (words lost here) was after a case out of the city which was Riverside, California. And Riverside, California did something similar to what we did, and we used them as a backdrop to get city officials involved, and that was state court, and we still used it as prece- dence in our case. You can use federal court as well, but I don't think it harms the precedence, if that is the question. Questioner: Do you think it's inevitable that it has to get to the U.S. Supreme Court? And they will have to automatically hear it? Celeste: No, they don't have to automatically hear it. In fact, at this level here the Supreme Court, which is the appeal level court for the case itself, they don't have to hear it. What you do in order to have a Supreme Court, whether it's State Supreme Court or Federal Supreme Court, hear a case is you have to file what is called a writ of sertiori (sp?), which is a special document saying that this is really a hot issue and you really need to take a look at it. The Colorado Supreme Court can deny sertiori and then we're stuck with whatever that decision was before. The same thing here. We can get beyond the Colorado Supreme Court, they grant sertiori and there's a decision we don't like, they don't like, they appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and they can deny sertiori and decide they don't want to hear it either, and we're left with the level of decision we have here. Questioner: Is there any possibility that Gale Norton and Roy Romer will not appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court? Celeste: Sure, there's always that possibility. The way that I understand it is that this Amendment 2 case caused a rift in the Attorney General's office. Half of the people said, "Hey, I don't want anything to do with this, I don't want to be a part of fighting this because I don't believe in it," and the other half are the ones we got on the case, which is good because they're like second string. Any other questions? OK, let's get over here to the injunction. What was the basis of the injunction? There's a case, and I don't remember the name of the case, it's probably in the folder I brought up here, but there is a case and it lays out what criteria you must meet in oreder to have an injunc- tion prevail. And it has six different steps, two or three of them I'll bring to your attention because those are the really big ones. One is it has that status quo, you have to ask for the status quo. It is important that Amendment 2 didn't take effect because if Amendment 2 took effect, then Amendment 2, in effect, would have been the status quo and we would have lost one of the ele- ments of the injunction. So one is status quo. Another is that there is ir- reparable harm. Well, what we did is, by virtue of the testimony, we put on Boulder's ordinance, Aspen's ordinance, Denver's ordinance that would have been jeopardized. A lot of the people--we chose the plaintiffs that we chose specifically with irreparable harm in mind. For example, Richard Evans is a city employee and has some city protections as a gay man. Paul Brown is a state employee, he has Romer's executive order that protects him as a gay man, and these are the particular people who would have been harmed if 2 went into effect, and they represent the whole collage of us. Status quo, irreparable harm. Likelihood of winning on the merits. This was a biggee. But let me get back to this in a minute. The irreparable harm that I just talked about is factual irreparable harm. There is alaso legal irreparable harm, and what we argued here is the mere legality of the fact that we would have had our constitutional rights impinged upon, and that was irreparable harm. So we argued twofold. We had two arguments about factual arguments about people in the cities and how they would be harmed, and the fact that our loss of rights per law would cause irreparable harm, impinging on our rights. The third point would be the likelihood of winning on the merits, and this is a biggee. I'll tell you why it's a biggee, because once they decided there was a likelihood we were going to win on the merits, what that does is make our case much better in October, and that's what he decided, that there was a likelihood of winning on the merits, that there was irreparable harm by virtue of impingement on the constitutional rights, and he was protecting the status quo, which was no Amendment 2 in effect. So that was his decision around the injunction, components or elements of the injunction. The next thing that we did was we argued the actual constitutional impingements. What were they? There were several of them and they are quite interesting. You may be familiar with the language of Amendment 2, and if you recall, at the tail end of Amendment 2, it says, "...and they don't have any right to claims of discrimination." What that does is it denies access to the courts. Let's say that you're dis- criminated against and you want to bring a claim through the court system. Well, Amendment 2 would prevent you from having your day in court, so it's a constitutional impingement, plus it denies access through the courts. It also affects the right to petition the government. For example, they said that no governmental agency can enact any laws. That means that we can't go out and do any repeals, we can't do anything related to the marriage laws, so on and so forth. So it denies us the right to petition the government, which is a fundamental right. The third thing it does is it impinges upon first amend- ment rights, and under that is a bunch of things, free speech, freedom of asso- ciation and the establishment clause. What is the establishment clause? That's a clause that exists in both the state and federal constitutions that says that you cannot mix church and state. So we presented evidence at trial through one of our experts that the real motivation and intent behind the en- actment of 2 was religious in nature, so we said they were violating the estab- lishment clause by mixing church and state, that the motivation was based upon religion. I may have missed a point or two, I don't remember. There may have been a couple of other constitutional arguments that were made. Give me a minute... Questioner: Equal protection... Celeste: Oh, that's the big one, OK. That's the one I like. If you remember the language of Amendment 2, it only referred to gays, lesbians and bisexuals. By doing that they classified a group of people and they created what is called a classification, which is one of the component parts of the equal protection ordinance classification. I'll tell you how that works in the constitution in a minute. They isolated a group of people and they did some discrimination related to that group. The way the constitution is set up now, by virtue of laws that have passed over the last century, they isolated groups that because of historical discrimination have become what is called suspect classifications and that's race, color, alienage religion. You cannot--if you discriminate against someone on those four bases, on those suspect classifications, you get a strict scrutiny test by the court. They don't like it because of the his- torical discrimination. There's an intermediary level, it's not a suspect level but an intermediary level. That's where gender and age fall. They don't get the suspect classification but they get a balancing approach. Then there's yet a third and it's not a classification--it's things that are just laws re- lated to money mostly, taxes. And that gets the least amount of scrutiny and the scrutiny that it gets is not suspect but is called rational basis. Now, we argued that we should be a suspect classification and get the highest degree of scrutiny because of historical discrimination. We didn't push that hard on it because we don't think that the courts are prepared to accept that, because there was a case, Bowers v. Hardwick, that denied that we were entitled to a suspect classification status. So we didn't really push that. But the same kind of scrutiny that we would get as a suspect classification is available to us if we can demonstrate that there is a violation of a constitutional right. And that's were we got them. We said, "Fine, we don't have to be a suspect classification, you don't have to give us that 'special right,' we have violations of our constitutional rights, thereby we're entitled to the same kind of strict scrutiny test as if we were a suspect classification," and that's what they bought. Also, we went even further and said, "And if you don't think our contitutonal rights are impinged upon, and if you don't think that we're a suspect classification and you give us the lowest level of scrutiny, which is rational basis, there's no rational basis for enactment of Amendment 2." Although they are alleged in all the briefs by Colorado for Family Values and the state, some of the basis that they have are the family value basis, the fact that we spread disease, that's all irrational basis for us, for us to have enactment of 2, but it's irrational so its not a rational basis. And funny enough, Judge Bayless went off on his own. He didn't use these, he came up with his own fundamental right, and he said that the fundamental right in- volved was that they cannot sanction--the state or any governmental entity can- not sanction private discrimination. That was how our rights were impinged upon, that it was sanctioning private discrimination. Now, he took a round- about way and he came up with something that's different than what we came up with. That's why I think that when the Colorado Appeals Court, the Colorado State Court, gets it, they'll uphold it, in my opinion. They're not going to uphold it on the basis of Bayless' ruling because there really isn't a lot of case law that supports the things he stated, but there's a lot of case law that supports this. In fact, I'm sure you probably read that Hawaii has a case that was decided in our favor. What they did is they said that--is anyone familiar with the Hawaii case? OK, not many, so let me just say what it is. What happened was that somebody challenged the marital statutes and the marital laws and the court said, "You now what, there's no reason why these people should not be able to marry, and they used this scrutiny, this strict scrutiny, and they said, "You know what, you'd better show me a compelling reason, state, why these people can't have access to the marriage laws, a compelling reason beyond the rational basis. So laws around the country, the sodomy laws in Kentucky, the Hawaii law, the Riverside case, they all address an equal protection or- dinance and they have all prevailed so far. Questioner: Cannot be heard. Celeste: Well, they require a compelling state interest, which is a level beyond this, and the fact that they use sex as a basis permitted us in our recent brief that we filed to incorporate the Hawaii argument as well. Questioner: Didn't the Hawaii state constitution specifically forbid discrimination based on sex? Celeste: I don't know. Questioner: I thought that was what made it unconstitutional. Celeste: That may be. I don't know. Questioner: Because it was a violation of that clause in the Hawaii constitution that says you can't discriminate based on sex. Does the Colorado constitution have such a provision? Celeste: No. Questioner: Does anybody have a clue as to why Bayless kind of bypassed all the points you said and went off on his own? Celeste: No. We liked the ruling, so we didn't say too much about it. Questioner: I'm really curious about what you think the Supreme Court is going to do with the standard of proof. Celeste: I think they're going--they could take one of several routes. They could follow any of this stuff. Even if they decide that they're not going to say it's a constitutional right that's being violated, and they agree about classi- fication but we're not suspect and we're not intermediary, they still have to apply the rational basis test, and even if they apply the rational basis test I can't see them saying that the motivation or intent behind Amendment 2 was rational. So even at the lowest level I think we'll win. Questioner: What are the four suspect... Celeste: ...race, color, alienation and religion. So this is the substantive portion, and these are the substantive arguments. These are the procedural arguments. And I'm going to stop there and take some more questions. Questioner: Is it possible after all this goes on, like three years down the road, and we go through all these court things that then they do a civil court case? Can they go to civil court and say that their rights were violated? Celeste: CFV? Who would be the plaintiff? Questioner: I don't know, you're the attorney. Celeste: Well, I think there's a possibility but having a civil action wouldn't lay with the other side, it would lay with us. I had somebody call me up once and say "I'm really pissed off with them doing all this. This has ruined my life and I want to sue them personally so that's... Questioner: ...so we could all enter a class action suit against... Celeste: ...that's a possibility. Questioner: ...creating a higher stress level or... (general conversation) Let's do it! Celeste: There's a statute in Colorado that's called the outrageous conduct statute... (general conversation) Celeste: Well, let's take our soldiers one at a time. How much does the state have to support Amendment 2 because it was voted in? It seems like they were vigorously supporting it and there was some question about how much they had to support it. Celeste: I'll tell you what, the October trial gets set and it's questionable whether or not we'll actually have a sitting of the trial. Because we are now talking state, and if we get to this level, regardless of whether we win the injunction or not, we would like the hearing on the injunction as we had it to act as the trial on merit, because we have all the testimony we need. We really don't have to go any further than what we've done. We had the opportunity to present a lot of stuff, much to our surprise, that went without objection. We didn't expect to get a lot of the things we got in. Sso we talked to the state and the state may be interested in stipulating to the fact that we'll just let the record act as the trial. Now, I think they would be less apt to stipulate to that if they lost and more apt to stipulate to that if they won. But in answer to the question, the state isn't as gung ho. What happeend was Colorado for Family Values is breathing down their necks. The reason they were at the trial is not because they wanted to be there. We subpoenaed them there. We wanted them to be there so for the record, the record reflected that they were present, so if they thought that anything was really stinky they could have objected then, so it acted like a waiver. So that's why we subpoenaed their presence, so they sat there. They filed what is called an amicus brief, or friend of the court brief, along with another organization--I don't have the name of that organization--so the state filed this brief and they had two briefs that accompanied it, one from the CFV, one from another organization, and we had six briefs signed by hundreds of organizations, civil rights legal organizations, the Colorado Bar Assocation, the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, and there's a bunch of acronyms, I have no idea what they mean, the Colorado Lesgian and Gay Law Association signed on, AIDS health groups, education groups, labor groups--AFL-CIO, religious groups--American Jewish Coalition ando thers, and then mental health groups, and they all wrote briefs on our behalf. Questioner: If it goes to the Supreme Court on the arguments that you're using here on the right side, the same or similar to the arguments that were unsuccessfully used to try to overthrow the Georgia sodomy statute... Celeste: Well, the same statute was also in Kentucy, and in Kentucky they overturned the sodomy laws. Was it Georgia that you said? They upheld the sodomy laws. And I think the argument was the suspect classification said that we were not a suspect classification, so that still leaves us the other arguments. That's why we didn't push suspect classiication in our case. Thats the Bowers v. Hardwick case that I mentioned. Questioner: Also the Kentucky law applied only to same sex relations (rest of question can- not be heard) Celeste: Can you repeat that please. (cannot hear question) Celeste The Kentucky law applied only to same sex relationships, but the Bowers v. Hardwick Georgia law applied equally to heterosexual couples. Questioner: Once you pinpoint a specific group in discrimination, that's how classification is...if Amendment 2 were not to mention gays, lesbians, bisexuals, but to say we cannot pass laws based on sexual orientation, would that be the equal pro- tection concept? Celeste: That's the same question I asked (name?) who is the lead counsel, I said if you would take out two pieces, one that created the classification and two that eliminated our access to the courts by saying that there could be no claims of discrimination, take out those two, would we still have a constitutional challenge? Let's say CFV comes back next year and just cleans it up. And she said yes, we still have a constitutitonal challenge because its invidious dis- crimination. Who's more likely to be discriminated against? She said we'd still have a legal challenge for that. Questioner: How much is the court case costing? Celeste: Well, I don't know how much we raised to date, but it's probably somewhere about 90 thousand dollars. We still have a lot of money in the bank. We have probably used about half the funds. For example, the injunction itself we had to pay those experts to fly in and do all this reasearch and so on, so the injunction cost us about 35 or 40 thousand dollars. We paid LAMBDA Legal Defense Fund's trips here, so we had travel costs, faxing and copying costs are enormous. We're hoping that we can get away cheap here in October and just stipulate to whatever happened at the injunction hearing, but once you get to the U.S. Supreme Court then it's more work again, more travel, more briefs, more long distance phone calls. We don't pay any of the attorneys, none of the attorneys are paid; however, we pay the expenses associated with the case. No attorneys fees, but expenses associated with the case, so we have a running tab with the attonreys, each one of them. Let's say, for example, Jean Dubovsky (sp?) worked 990 hours and if she had been paid we would not have been able to afford it, but when you compare that time to the time she would have been practicing the case, she has overhead expenses, and we pay a portion of the overhead expenses. So, each month that the attorneys work on it, and they work on it almost every month, sometimes more, closer to the hearing and stuff, more, so we provide them a ratio of their overhead expenses. And if we prevail all the way through the system, and this is what gets scary to the state, the state may have to pay our attorneys' fees. So how far are they going to take it? Questioner: I'm interested in exactly what is happening next Monday... Celeste: Next Monday... Questioner: ...will a decision be made... Celeste: We're not going to get a decision the same day, firstly. Let me tell you that. Don't expect we're going to have a hearing and then the same day we'll get the decision. There are seven people on the panel, seven justices in the group, who will sit down and decide, first of all, who's going to write the opinion and what the decision's going to be. Some of the justices may dissent, but as long as the majority agree, it's OK, and they'll write dissenting opinions. Some of the judges may concur in part only and say how they dissent in part and concur in part, so it may take--you know, they're out for vacation. They start in the beginning of July, and we're hoping to get a decision before they leave for vacation. Wwhat exactly is happening? They're reviewing the status quo, the irreparable harm, the likelihood of the merits, all the component parts of the injunction, to make sure that Bayless didn't abuse his discretion in allowing or preventing the injunction and, at the same time, as a component part of that they're going to look at the likelihood of the merits, and look at his rational for why he thinks it's likely to be unconstitutional. And they're reviewing the briefs, the state's opening brief, our response brief, the state's reply brief, and they're reviewing the amicus briefs, the friend of the court briefs that I mentioned, on our behalf and on their behalf. The oral argument is a very limited amount of time. I doubt that we'll get an opportunity to speak more than 20 minutes each, and it's scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday morning. (question cannot be heard) Celeste: Yes, limited. They moved to us to a big courtroom for the Amendment 2 injunc- tion hearing, but the Colorado Supreme Court doesn't have that space available to us so... Questoner: They're going to decide whether they will uphold the injunction? Celeste: That's right. Questioner: And what if they decide not to, can they appeal... Celeste: ...no, it's an interlocutory decree. But we still have the actual trial on the substance. Questioner: When does that take place? Celeste: It's October 12. (general conversation) Questioner: Does that take place in Boulder? Celeste: The injuction hearing is in the Colorado Supreme Court, which is a different building than where the trial court was. The October hearing is the trial court building. Questioner: I don't quite understand why you would actually, in the October case, stipulate the case that you gave for the injunction. It seems like in some sense you're sitting back saying, "OK, we did a good job; we don't have anything more to present." It seems like there might be more stuff to present. Now, I under- stand the argument you made that we got away with more than we probably should have been able to and we want to keep that as well, but can you explain? Be- cause I don't understand why you would do that. Celeste: I'll tell you why. One of the reasons is that we caught the state offguard,and they didn't get an opportunity to put their case together the way they would have liked, so another opportunity would be another opportunity for them that they didn't have the first time, one. Two, there isn't really any more evi- dence that we have to put on. We had everybody testify about all these things. All we would do is be redundant and wasteful of the court's time and our money. It's not because we don't think that--actually, the money isn't even a factor. The fact of the matter is, the major fact is, that we put all the information on that we wanted to, we created a very good record, and we caught the state offguard. And if we went in in October, they are going to have an opportunity to put people on the stand that they didn't have an opportunity to put before. Questioner: So, does this mean that the state can't add anything new as well? That when this happens, they have to make a ruling exactly on the evidence presented prior? Celeste: That's right, that's right. But you know, even though we stipulate with the state, it still has to be approved by the court system. Questioner: What's the likelihood of that? Celeste: Good. Questioner: One last question. If we prevail all the way through the State Supreme Court level, or to the U.S. Supreme Court, what are the ramifications for other states as a precedent... Celeste: Well, you know, they can use our case now. They can use the injunction law now. They can use it at any level that we prevail. As you probably know, there's a lot of states, 12 states, out there now facing similar provisions. In fact, Michigan is verbatim Amendment 2, so we're trying to...they can use this, just like we used the Riverside case, they can use our case. And if you add all the other gay issue laws, the military stuff with Meinhold and the sodomy law of Kentucky and the Hawaii law and this law, you start to build more and more momentum, and that's called a movement. All right! (applause) I really want to thank Mary for coming up here tonight. One of the things when we started BOND, we made some commitments about pursuing civil rights for gays, bisexuals, transgendered people, and part of that had to do with Amendment 2 and the court case. I'm going to invite Vince up here to explain how we're, in part, fulfilling some of our commitment around the court case. Vince: For those of you who haven't been here the last couple of meetings, about three months ago the CU Ultimate Team, the Ultimate Frisbee Team that I captain, put together a tournament for BOND and, at the request of Jabe, we split the pro- ceeds from the tornament with CLIP (applause), and we called it "Overthrow 2", and for those of you who can't see this, it's a frisbee crashing into a 2 and knocking it over. And on April 24 and 25, nine teams from all over Colorado came and participated in this two-day tournament. We had a lot of fun despite snow all day Saturday and had a great party on Saturday night, and we raised approximately $2,000. And here's a check for $1,000 for CLIP. (heavy applause) We also want to thank Vince, because Vince almost singlehandedly, along with others, put this thing together and pulled it off and raised $1,000 dollars, and it's going to go a long way. And it's one more step to knock down Amendment 2! Celeste: To the Supreme Court! (heavy applause)