William Clayman (left) and Joshua Handell (by Chris Ferenzi)
Although we no longer have Legal Eagle Wedding Watch here at Above the Law (how could it continue without the peerless Laurie Lin as author), we still comment on interesting lawyer weddings. Take this union of two Yale Law School graduates who now both work at the Justice Department, announced over the weekend in the New York Times:
William Gilbert Clayman and Joshua Keith Handell were married Aug. 18 at the Yale Club of New York City. Kyle Roche, a friend of the couple who became a Universal Life minister for the occasion, officiated. Judge Diane S. Sykes, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, led the couple in an exchange of vows.
Left to right: Judge Diane Sykes, Josh Handell, and Bill Clayman (click to enlarge).
As one reader wrote to me in sending along the link, “Here’s something you don’t see every day: Judge Sykes officiating a gay wedding!”[1]
Judge Sykes is, of course, one of the nation’s most prominent and respected conservative judges, a Trump Supreme Court shortlister who was a finalist for the SCOTUS seat now occupied by Justice Neil Gorsuch. And she dissented in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College, in which a majority of the Seventh Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act covers discrimination based on sexual orientation.
So what does Judge Sykes participating in a same-sex wedding suggest? I have two takeaways.
First, contrary to the claims of many in the LGBT community, rulings against us or the legal claims we raise are not always the product of “bigotry.” Judge Sykes’s dissent in Hively reflected her principled legal view that the language of Title VII simply cannot be read (or twisted) to cover sexual-orientation discrimination; it did not reflect any personal animus she harbors toward gays. Reader, she married them![2]
Josh Handell clerked for Judge Sykes, and he came out to her just a few weeks into his clerkship, when he brought Bill Clayman as his date to a celebration of Judge Sykes’s 10-year anniversary on the bench. Judge Sykes has been a friend and supporter of the couple ever since (and she did, in the words of one witness, a “fabulous” job officiating at their nuptials).
Second, it shows how far we have come on the issue of marriage equality. Back in 2006, a nominee to a district-court seat in Michigan saw her nomination stalled because she once attended — yes, attended — a commitment ceremony for a lesbian friend of hers. Today, an appeals-court judge (and possible Supreme Court justice) can officiate at a gay wedding, and it’s no big deal.
This is why, as I wrote last year, gay marriage is safe, even without Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Public opinion has shifted dramatically, hearts and minds have been changed, and there’s no going back.
In any event, congratulations to William Clayman and Joshua Handell on their nuptials. And congratulations to Judge Sykes on officiating her first same-sex wedding — her first, but hopefully not her last.
[1] Although the Times refers to a friend of the couple, Kyle Roche, as officiating — because he was the New York State-registered officiant who formally signed the marriage license and performed a quick, private ceremony with the couple and two witnesses — it’s also fair to describe Judge Sykes as “officiating,” since she performed the main public ceremony before all of the wedding guests.
[2] See also the dissent of Judge Gerard Lynch in Zarda v. Altitude Express, the Second Circuit case raising the same issue. Although Judge Lynch wrote that he would, as a citizen, “be delighted to awake one morning and learn that Congress had just passed legislation adding sexual orientation to the list of grounds of employment discrimination prohibited under Title VII,” he could not reach that result under the existing version of the Act.
William Clayman, Joshua Handell [New York Times]
Earlier:
David Lat is editor at large and founding editor of Above the Law, as well as the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.
A Most Interesting Lawyerly Wedding Announcement curated from Above the Law
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