Saundra Toby-Heath

Queer Newark Oral History Project

In 2002, Saundra Toby-Heath and Alicia Heath-Toby joined the fight for marriage equality in the state of New Jersey with six other same-sex couples. Represented by Lambda Legal, they filed a lawsuit, Lewis v. Harris, to demand their constitutional right to marry. Their case made it all the way to the New Jersey Supreme Court in 2006 where they ultimately won the right for same sex couples to marry into civil unions. This was one of the important pre-cursors to the Supreme Court's 2013 ruling that struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and required the U.S. government to provide the same benefits to both gay and heterosexual couples. Then in 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality nationwide. Hear what it was like for Saundra to be a part of such a pivotal legal battle.