Law Commons^™

Gendered Normativities: The Role And Rule Of Law, Susanne Baer

Book Chapters

In the 21st century, human rights are as present as they are endangered. Specifically, sex/gender equality rights are contested, or actively abridged, which is to be understood as an attack on women and on people who do not fit a ‘normal’ pattern of gender relations. Yet in addition, these are attacks on democratic constitutionalism itself. The article argues that to properly understand the recent contestations of human rights, one must distinguish between critique and attack, and revisit the very form and content of human rights, to deal with law’s ambivalence, such as ‘legal colonialism’, and also take into account critical …

Special Issues In Transcultural, Transracial, And Gay And Lesbian Parenting And Adoption, Frank E. Vandervort, Robert B. Sanoshy

Book Chapters

The adoption of children whose natural parents are unable to or incapable of caring for them by adults who are able to provide for them has existed throughout human history in one form or another (In re Smith Estate 1955; Miller et al. 2007). Before the mid-1800s, however, there was no formal mechanism for a person interested in adopting a child in the United States to do so (Bartholet 1999). In 1851, the Massachusetts legislature enacted the Massachusetts Adoption of Children Act (General Court of Massachusetts 1851). Though enacted more than 150 years ago, the act's basic structure is clearly …

Couples: Marriage, Civil Union, And Domestic Partnership, David L. Chambers

Book Chapters

In this country, during the last decades of the twentieth century, thousands of lesbians married other women and thousands of gay men married other men. Many of these couples recited traditional vows in churches and synagogues. Others have pledged to each other in their own backyards in words that they wrote themselves. But not one of these thousands of solemn occasions was recognized as creating a legally valid marriage. In the United States, each state has its own statute defining who can marry, and as far as the states were concerned, these couples were playing dress up. One state has …

The Law And The Stability Of Marriage: The Family As A Social Institution, Carl E. Schneider

Book Chapters

Samuel Johnson once wrote, "It is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilized society imposes to prevent separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together." In this chapter I shall pursue Dr. Johnson's provocative suggestion by asking what restraints (if any) society might impose through law on couples to join them in marriage in the first place and to keep them in it after they have married.

But why might society …