SA lesbian rejoices in landmark US ruling

Patricia Lambert credited Nelson Mandela for her lesbian marriage as she celebrated a new life on the steps of the US Supreme Court.

The lawyer's South African marriage to an American woman was finally recognised in the US on Wednesday - and the chance of being deported removed - after the US's highest court struck down the country's anti-gay marriage law, known as "Doma" - the Defence of Marriage Act.

"Until Wednesday we were in the crazy situation of being single in America while legally married in South Africa, not able to file joint tax returns and being financially hurt - me unable to get a green card, her being a second-class citizen in her own country," said Lambert.

"I thought of Madiba - Tata - all the time outside the supreme court, so thankful for the central role he played in my being able to marry the woman I love."

Now the legal director for an anti-tobacco agency in Washington DC, Lambert, 59, served as legal adviser to two cabinet ministers under Mandela and was South Africa's chief negotiator on tobacco control.

Lambert married an American, Kathy Mulvey, on Women's Day at the Cradle of Humankind, near Johannesburg, in 2007 - "specifically to celebrate South Africa's wonderful constitution in a country I still call home, where the government does not say I am a second-class citizen".

The challenge to the Doma law was brought by an 84-year-old lesbian, Edith Windsor, after she was hit with a $363000 inheritance tax bill in 2009. The tax - which does not apply to heterosexual spouses - was levied after the death of Windsor's partner of more than 40 years, Thea Spyer.

The pair had only married in 2007, in Canada, after Spyer, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, was given only a year to live.

Windsor emerged as a national hero this week, and Lambert remarked: "Isn't she just beyond wonderful?"

The South African said the Doma law had forced her to lie on visa forms and that - until Wednesday - she had faced deportation if the US government ever found out. She said she had also been forced to enter into contracts in the past six years as a "single" person, despite being married.

She and Mulvey fell in love in Switzerland in 2003 while she was negotiating an anti-tobacco treaty for South Africa.

Mulvey said that, at the time, she could legally marry a woman in her home state of Massachusetts thanks to a South African-born judge there, Margaret Marshall, who was the first to rule in favour of gay marriage anywhere in the US.

Another 14 states have since recognised homosexual unions. But, until Wednesday, federal benefits were denied them.

Gay marriage remains illegal in the remaining 35 US states.

The pair did not wed in Massachusetts because they would still not have been entitled to federal benefits.

Lambert said that, on Wednesday morning, she switched around a packed work schedule at the last minute to join Mulvey at the court, realising "this was a momentous day".

"There was a woman standing next to us with an iPhone, looking at the Supreme Court blog, and she said - and I cry even as I speak of it now - she said: 'Doma's down; they've taken Doma away!'

"I took one look at Kath's face and realised we are one in so many ways. For a country to deliberately pass a piece of legislation that turns some of its citizens into second-class citizens just beggars belief. That we witnessed it being removed was the cause of so much joy."

Mulvey said the US Supreme Court decision "brought an end to years of stress and uncertainty about whether we might be forced to live apart. We've had more than 200 years to achieve justice, full equality and democracy and we still have a long way to go - and much to learn from freedom fighters like Nelson Mandela."

Lambert, who was born in Springs and educated at Rhodes University, said: "I was fortunate to have briefed President Mandela from time to time and the thing I learnt from him above all was the importance and power of human dignity. And so I pray for a dignified end to his life.

"My heart goes out to Graça Machel. As I treasured the love story I have with Kath, I thought about the love story between Madiba and Graça."

She said she and her wife would immediately file joint tax returns and work on gaining a green card.

The couple also saw a second landmark ruling for same-sex equality with the striking-down of California's recent ban on new gay marriages.

"I felt just as strongly about 'Prop 8' because I am a lesbian and inequality is wrong, and what was done in California was absolutely shameful," Lambert said.

But she warned: "It's not over. For states that do allow marriage, those marriages are now fully legal, but what happens when a same-sex couple marry in Massachusetts and then go to live in Utah. How do they pay their taxes?"