Law Commons^™

Marriage Equality For Same-Sex Couples: Where We Are And Where We Are Going, Jennifer Levi

Faculty Scholarship

The legal landscape for same-sex couples seeking to marry has shifted dramatically over the last five years. On October 10, 2008, the Connecticut Supreme Court became the third state high court to rule that its state constitution could not sustain a statutory framework that excludes same-sex couples from marrying, following the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on November 18, 2003, and the California Supreme Court on May 15, 2008. Same-sex couples throughout the country have gotten married in Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, and in other countries throughout the world that provide full marriage equality, including in Canada. The Author discusses the developments …

Ten Questions On Gay Rights And Freedom Of Religion, Wilson Huhn

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In my opinion most of the legal and social problems that arise under the Constitution stem from the belief, held by some people, that they are better than other people. They do not hate anyone. They simply believe that they are superior and that the law ought to treat them better than the other group. This is true of whites who think they are superior to blacks, men who think they are superior to women, and heterosexuals who think they are superior to homosexuals.

People have often justified these types of beliefs by appeal to religion and have attempted to …

Evaluating Legal Activism: A Response To Rosenberg, Dara Purvis

Journal Articles

Earlier this year, Gerald Rosenberg updated his canonical work The Hollow Hope to incorporate the battles over same-sex marriage as, in his opinion, further support for his theory that the backlash of legal activism can subvert the intended goals. This Article examines three of Rosenberg’s central claims and, by questioning their premises with further evidence from the history of the same-sex marriage movement, roils the waters of whether the litigational and political record of the same-sex marriage movement bolsters or weakens Rosenberg’s thesis. The Article first questions Rosenberg’s claim that activists seeking to advance same sex marriage erroneously chose the …

Sexual Politics And Social Change, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

The Article examines the impact of social movement activity upon the advancement of GLBT rights. It analyzes the state and local strategy that GLBT social movements utilized to alter the legal status of sexual orientation and sexuality following the Supreme Court's ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick. Successful advocacy before state and local courts, human rights commissions, and legislatures fundamentally shifted public opinion and laws regarding sexual orientation and sexuality between Bowers and the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas. This altered landscape created the ''political opportunity" for the Lawrence ruling and made the opinion relatively "safe. "

Currently, …

Who Says "I Do"? Reviewing Judith Butler & Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Who Sings The Nation-State? Language, Politics, Belonging (2007), Noa Ben-Asher

Faculty Publications

This Book Review offers an analogy between two forms of resistance to legal discrimination by marginalized minorities: singing the national anthem in Spanish on the streets of Los Angeles in the spring of 2006 by undocumented immigrants, and possible future public marriage ceremonies by LGBT people and other marriage outlaws. Based on the conceptual grounds laid by Judith Butler and Gayatri Spivak, and earlier by Hannah Arendt, the Review uses an analogy to the public singing of the anthem in Spanish in order to argue that the performance of public marriage ceremonies by LGBT people and other marriage outlaws may …