CHICAGO, Nov. 13, 2023 — The American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) will honor Oregon lawyer Mark Johnson Roberts with its Stonewall Award during a ceremony on Feb. 3, 2024, at the ABA Midyear Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky.
Named after the New York City Stonewall Inn police raid and riot of June 28, 1969, which was a turning point in the gay rights movement, the award recognizes lawyers who have considerably advanced lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in the legal profession and successfully championed LGBT legal causes.
Johnson Roberts is a former board co-chair of the National Lesbian & Gay Law Association (now the National LGBT Bar Association), former chair of the ABA SOGI and former president of the Oregon State Bar.
He co-founded the Oregon Gay & Lesbian Law Association as well as a group that later became the Basic Rights Oregon Legal Advisory Team, which designed and implemented a legal strategy for achieving marriage equality in the state and coordinated efforts with national organizations.
Johnson Roberts assisted in drafting Oregon’s civil union law and served as lead attorney on several cases, including Martinez v. Kulongoski, the first case that attempted to overturn the state’s “defense of marriage” constitutional amendment.
Johnson Roberts has a B.A. from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
You can find a photo of Johnson Roberts here.
The ABA Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity leads the ABA’s commitment to diversity, inclusion and full and equal participation by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the ABA, the legal profession and society. Created in 2007, the commission seeks to secure equal treatment in the ABA, the legal profession and the justice system without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity.
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