Debate over Same-Sex Marriage

“If You Allow Gay Marriage…” by John Erickson

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project

… you have to allow polygamy, bestiality, and everything else!” The title for my post this week is a quote from an... more … you have to allow polygamy, bestiality, and everything else!” The title for my post this week is a quote from an individual I used to associate with.  This individual, haling from a conservative evangelical background, tried to explain to several others and myself the reasons why gay marriage would eventually lead to the repeal of anti-polygamy and bestiality laws across the United States.

The problems that I have with this particular argument are conflating gay marriage with religious freedom.  Activists and scholars can draw comparisons to anti-polygamy cases such as the 1878 U.S. Supreme Court case Reynolds v United States and the 1882 Edmunds Act and 1887 Edmunds-Tucker Act that disfranchised and led to the imprisonment of Mormon polygamists. But in the end, gay marriage is not about religious freedom but rather human rights.

Overcoming Brides and Grooms The Representation of Lesbian and Gay Rights in Spain

by Raquel (Lucas) Platero

Multiple Meanings of Gender Equality. A Critical Frame Analysis of Gender Policies in Europe. Edited by MIEKE VERLOO

Toward a Political Sociology of Conjugal-Recognition Regimes: Gendered Multiculturalism in South African Marriage Law

by Michael Yarbrough

While conjugal-recognition policies are often a subject of political debate, scholarly attempts to explain such... more While conjugal-recognition policies are often a subject of political debate, scholarly attempts to explain such policies are relatively rare and typically focused on discrete policies—same-sex marriage, no-fault divorce, etc.—with comparatively little investigation of potential connections among policies. This article begins to develop a more holistic approach focused on explaining and understanding what I call conjugal-recognition regimes. Adapting the concept from the existing literature on welfare regimes, I argue that conjugal-recognition regimes exist when an identifiable pattern or principle organizes an institution’s conjugal-recognition policy and thereby shapes social relations at multiple levels, from the individuals in conjugal relationships to the multiple institutions (state, religious, and so on) that confer official conjugal recognition. I argue that these organizing patterns or principles emerge out of historically specific, institutionally situated, and discursively constructed political debates on specific conjugal issues and go on to shape subsequent conjugal-policy controversies. I demonstrate these ideas through an extended analysis of post-apartheid South African marriage law, which has recently incorporated numerous previously excluded conjugal formations but has also assigned each new form to its own statutory and administrative structure or, as I call it, “silo.” I argue that these silos entrench a principle of “gendered multiculturalism” that officially defines cultures in terms of their supposedly characteristic gender relations. This principle increasingly tends to favor religious and cultural elites’ understandings of their respective traditions.

Cambio di sesso del coniuge e scioglimento del matrimonio: costruzione e implicazioni del diritto fondamentale all'identità di genere

by Matteo Winkler

Published on "Giurisprudenza di merito", No. 3/2012, pp. 570-589

This article is a comment to two decisions of Italian courts in a case of a transsexual person who had changed sex... more This article is a comment to two decisions of Italian courts in a case of a transsexual person who had changed sex after marriage but wanted, together with his (now her) wife, to preserve the marriage as valid and effective. Two are the main issues here: the construction of gender identity, that seems to imply a findamental right to freedom to choose a person's own gender identity, and the preservation of marriage, another fundamental right, from the negative effects of a change of sex. The article construes an argument in favor of both.

Čitanka istopolnih studija

by Miodrag Kojadinovic

Queer Studies Reader in Serbian (edited, wrote an article and an editor's foreword) Queer Studies Reader in Serbian (edited, wrote an article and an editor's foreword)

Report on the Impact of the Spanish Same-Sex Marriage Act in National Law

by José Luis Bazán

Profesionales por la Ética, Servicio Jurídico, 2009.

The introduction of the law on same-sex unions has radically changed the legal enforcement of Spain, especially in... more The introduction of the law on same-sex unions has radically changed the legal enforcement of Spain, especially in matters of family law. Though not yet been decided by the Constitutional Court of Spain, it is still pending an appeal on its constitutionality.

Obama supports gay marriage - why can't our leaders?

by Senthorun Raj

Published in ABC The Drum, 10th May 2012

After "evolving" on the issue for a couple of years, Barack Obama became the first serving US president to... more After "evolving" on the issue for a couple of years, Barack Obama became the first serving US president to make public his support to allow same-sex couples to get married. This op-ed reflects on the shifting political debate on marriage equality.

Il matrimonio e la famiglia omosessuale in due recenti sentenze. Prime note in forma di soliloquio

by Alexander Schuster

Pubbl. in 'Forum Quaderni costituzionali', Paper n. 317, 30 aprile 2012, www.forumquadernicostituzionali.it

A comment in Italian to the ECtHR judgment Gas et Dubois v. France and to the Italian Supreme Court judgment no.... more A comment in Italian to the ECtHR judgment Gas et Dubois v. France and to the Italian Supreme Court judgment no. 4148/2012 on the (non) recognition of a Dutch same-gender marriage involving two Italian citizens. Both decisions were delivered on 15 March 2012.

I matrimoni same-sex di fronte alla Corte di Cassazione [Same-Sex Marriages before the Cassation Court]

by Matteo Winkler

A short comment to Cass. civ., March 12, 2012, No. 4184, appeared in 11 Int'l Lis 7-8 (2012).

Queer Unions: Lesbian and Gay Spouses Marrying Tradition & Innovation

by Adam Isaiah Green

Canadian Journal of Sociology

Why Liberal Neutrality Prohibits Same-Sex Marriage: Rawls, Political Liberalism, and the Family

by Matthew O'Brien

Forthcoming in The British Journal of American Legal Studies, Vol. 1, Issue 2 (Summer/Fall 2012).

John Rawls’s political liberalism and its ideal of public reason are tremendously influential in contemporary... more John Rawls’s political liberalism and its ideal of public reason are tremendously influential in contemporary political philosophy and in constitutional law as well. Many, perhaps even most, liberals are Rawlsians of one stripe or another. This is problematic, because most liberals also support the redefinition of civil marriage to include same-sex unions, and as I show, Rawls’s political liberalism actually prohibits same- sex marriage. Recently in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, however, California’s northern federal district court reinterpreted the traditional rational basis review in terms of liberal neutrality akin to Rawls’s “public reason,” and overturned Proposition 8 and established same-sex marriage. (This reinterpretation was amplified in the 9th Circuit Court’s decision upholding the district court on appeal in Perry v. Brown.) But on its own grounds Perry should have drawn the opposite conclusion. This is because all the available arguments for recognizing same-sex unions as civil marriages stem from controversial comprehensive doctrines about the good, and this violates the ideal of public reason; yet there remains a publicly reasonable argument for traditional marriage, which I sketch here. In the course of my argument I develop Rawls’s politically liberal account of the family and defend it against objections, discussing its implications for political theory and constitutional law.

The 600 Year Tradition Behind Same-Sex Unions

by Allan Tulchin

Short piece summarizing "Same-Sex Couples Creating Households in Old Regime France: The Uses of the... more Short piece summarizing "Same-Sex Couples Creating Households in Old Regime France: The Uses of the 'Affrèrement.'" (J. Mod. Hist., 2007).

Case Comment: South Africa: Constitutional Protection for Homosexuals-A Brave Initiative, But Is It Working

by paula gerber

Jack & Jill or Jack & Bill: The case for same-sex adoption

by paula gerber

Co-authored with Adiva Sifris. (2009) 34(3) Alternative Law Journal 168

This article examines the discriminatory legislation which prohibits same-sex couples from adopting children in many... more This article examines the discriminatory legislation which prohibits same-sex couples from adopting children in many jurisdictions. New South Wales is used as a case study to highlight inconsistencies between the treatment of heterosexual prospective parents and same-sex parents. This is contrasted with the legal recognition of same-sex parents pursuant to recent amendments to the Federal Family Law Act 1975 and various State Acts.

Sacred Rites and Civil Rights: Religion's Effect on Attitudes Toward Same‐Sex Unions and the Perceived Cause of Homosexuality*

by Andrew Whitehead

Same-Sex Marriage and the Constitution

by Charles Gossett

Affective Aesthetics: Picasso, Politics and Social Change

by Senthorun Raj

Presented at Art After Hours (7:20-14:00), 25th January 2012

My Pecha Kucha presentation at the Art Gallery of NSW explores some of Picasso's work and how it inspires critical... more My Pecha Kucha presentation at the Art Gallery of NSW explores some of Picasso's work and how it inspires critical politics and social justice.

LOVE AND THE STATE: GAY MARRIAGE IN SPAIN

by Raquel (Lucas) Platero

On 30 June 2005, the Spanish Parliament approved Law 13/2005, which amends the Civil Code to permit same-sex marriage.... more On 30 June 2005, the Spanish Parliament approved Law 13/2005, which amends the Civil Code to permit same-sex marriage. This formal equality measure put Spain in the spotlight of the international media. It is the culmination of a series of developments spanning from the last years of the Franco regime (which ended in 1975), through the enactment of anti-discrimination measures in 1995, to the recent fight for kinship recognition. It also follows a recent shift, from 1998 to 2005, towards the enactment of same-sex partnership laws at regional level, the approval of same-sex marriage and finally, the approval of a ‘gender identity law’ (2007). This legislative note assesses the context in which the new law on same-sex marriage has been enacted. I argue that although same-sex marriage has been represented by many activists and politicians in Spain as a gender neutral contract, it has the potential for differential impacts on lesbians and gay men, and further research and debates are needed in this area.

What was the true relationship between a Hittite man and his LU HA.LA-SU according to the Hittite Laws in Bronze Age Anatolia? Partner, shareholder, Associate, household live in man friend, an amibuity or just a much oversighted case of Same-Sex Marriage Bronzed style.

by Mark Shindel

Proposition 8 struck down US Court of Appeals 10-16696

by Romero Anton Montalban Anderssen