For Lawyers, a Rocky Walk Down the Gay Marriage Aisle

An historic triumph for gay marriage may be within reach this spring on the biggest possible stage, but attorney Dana Nessel’s chief frustration at the moment is actually not anti-gay opponents. Rather, she’s taking aim at an unlikely target: the biggest, richest civil rights and gay rights organizations, all of which have left her team to beg and scrape for the estimated $1 million they need to litigate at the Supreme Court. “Nobody even wanted us to file this case, they all tried to stop us, and even now they’re not helping much,” she says tartly. “The great irony is, we’re the ones going to the Supreme Court.”

Nessel and two other attorneys represent April DeBoer and Jayne Rowse, a lesbian couple from suburban Detroit who seek to wed in order to co-adopt their four children, two of whom have special needs. Their case is one of four that will be argued before the Supreme Court in April; the high court is expected to finally rule by June on whether it is unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the ability to legally wed.