In February, 2013 in Washington, D.C. a policy brief was released in a public briefing with Rep. Linda Sanchez in the Rayburn building of the U.S. House of Representatives. The report, Living Outside the Safety Net – LGBT Families & Social Security, was produced by the Foundation of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCF) and the Foundation of the Human Rights Campaign (HRCF).

In San Francisco on June 3, 2013, NCF and HRCF and the Institute for Health and Aging;  the Lesbian Health & Research Center of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF); Openhouse and others are co-sponsoring, a panel of experts who will discuss the disparities and real life consequences of present Social Security law for same-sex couples and their children.  Participating on the panel will be:

• Belva Davis, Broadcast Journalist and Author, Moderator of the panel
• Carroll Estes, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Founding and first Director of the Institute for Health & Aging at UCSF (current  Board Chair of the NCF);
• Shane Snowdon, Director of Health & Aging at the HRCF (past Director of UCSF LGBT Center for Health and Equity);
• Max Richtman, President and CEO of The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare;
• Jay Leffew, a social justice advocate whose adopted son Daniel recently gained visibility through his You Tube message to Chief Justice Roberts urging the overturn of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8. Jay and his husband, Bryan, live in Santa Rosa, California.
• Therese M. Stewart, Chief Deputy City Attorney City & County of San Francisco who  has been in the forefront of arguing for same-sex marriage throughout her career  before the California Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court.  She led a team of attorneys representing the City challenging Proposition 8 which banned gay marriage in 2008.

 The report urges Congress to strengthen the protections provided by Social Security to spouses and family members of America’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community (LGBT). The event is timely as it precedes the June Supreme Court ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8. Legislation to amend Social Security law and provide full benefits to LGBT Families was introduced by Linda Sanchez (D-California) in the 112^th Congress and is expected to be re-introduced in the 113^th.

For more information about the panel at The Laurel Heights Auditorium, UCSF, please contact:

Ellen Morgenstern (morgensterne@ncpssm.org) ;  or Julie Tippens, (tippensj@ncpssm.org)

Press inquiries:  Shane Snowdon, Shane.Snowdon@hrc.org and Pamela Causey, causeyp@ncpssm.org  and Elizabeth Fernandez, efernandez@pubaff.ucsf.edu.