Law Commons^™

Constitutional Classifications And The Gay Gene, Susan Becker

Journal of Law and Health

What I am going to talk about is the use of genetic information to classify individuals for purposes of the law, and more specifically, the impact of the so-called "gay gene" on legal classifications. What is really important here, and the reason I need to offer you a primer on constitutional law, is so that we all start on the same page by understanding how our laws, starting with the federal constitution, classify people for the purpose of bestowing or denying rights and benefits. This leads us to an understanding of why people object to various classifications, and an appreciation …

Boy Scouts Of America V. Dale 530 U.S. 640 (2000), Dennis Amari

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Intrastate Ethnic Conflicts And International Law: How The Rise Of Intrastate Ethnic Conflicts Has Rendered International Human Rights Laws Ineffective, Especially Regarding Sex-Based Crimes , Karina Michael Waller

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Children Of Homosexual Parents: The Voices The Courts Have Yet To Hear. , Eileen P. Huff

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

The Optional Protocols To The Un Convention On The Rights Of The Child On Sex Trafficking And Child Soldiers, Cris R. Revaz

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Surveying Gender Bias At One Midwestern Law School, Lisa A. Wilson, David H. Taylor

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Sexists, Misogynists And The Male-Dominated Workplace: Whether Prevailing Workplace Norms Should Discredit A Hostile Work Environment In Williams V. General Motors Corp., Maresa Torregrossa

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Rights Of The Adolescent: The Mature Minor, Roxanne Mykitiuk, Victoria J. Davis

Articles & Book Chapters

Health care providers who treat adolescents may also be required to diagnose and treat the reproductive health conditions of minor patients and to facilitate health prevention measures, including contraception and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. Teens who do not want their parents to know about their sexual behaviour may consult a health care provider for reproductive or sexual health care services and treatment without parental knowledge or consent. This may present legal and ethical dilemmas for health care providers. Common law recognizes that adolescents under the legal age of majority who are sufficiently mature (the mature minor) may have the …

On Law And Chastity, Robert E. Rodes

Journal Articles

When Dwight Eisenhower was President, and the baby boomers of today were but gleams in the eyes of their monogamous parents, it was well understood that chastity was the prevailing social norm.

On the whole, the standard was reinforced by the social ambiance. It was not at all difficult for people of relatively chaste mind to go for days, sometimes weeks, without encountering much of anything at which they could justly take offense. In most environments, social discourse was relatively free of explicit sex, and even sexual innuendo was far from pervasive. Films and broadcasting were closely censored, and detailed …

How Democratic Are Initiatives?, Richard B. Collins

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Wanted Gaze: Accountability For Interpersonal Conduct At Work, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mary Joe Frug's Postmodern Feminist Legal Manifesto Ten Years Later: Reflections On The State Of Feminism Today·, Regina Austin, Elizabeth M. Schneider

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

In Search Of Prince Charming, Margaret F. Brinig

Journal Articles

This response begins by addressing the different perspectives as presented by the panel “Sex, Lies and Exploitation.” One of the panelists, professor Plasencia, presented a powerful and graphic documentation of digital communication’s influence on the sex industry. Some of the images involved explicitly portrayed the sex trade while in others, it was portrayed more subtly as an arranged or mail-order marriage. The author's response to professor Plasencia is mixed. On the one hand, it is rather easy these days for one to mistakenly encounter a sexually explicit website. On the other hand, however, since little information exists on how widespread …

School Liability For Peer Sexual Harassment After Davis: Shifting From Intent To Causation In Discrimination Law, Deborah L. Brake

Articles

This essay seeks to explain the Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education case as an interpretation of discrimination that notably and correctly focuses on how institutions cause sex-based harm, rather than on whether officials within chose institutions act with a discriminatory intent. In the process, I discuss what appears to be the implicit theory of discrimination underlying the Davis decision: that schools cause the discrimination by exacerbating the harm that results from sexual harassment by students. I then explore the significance of the deliberate indifference requirement in this context, concluding that the standard, for all its flaws, is distinct …

Little Sisters Book And Art Emporium V. Minister Of Justice: Sex Equality And The Attack On R. V. Butler, Janine Benedet

All Faculty Publications

Scholars and philosophers spend much of their time discussing what pornography means and whether it can be defined. This debate persists despite the fact that most men, regardless of their sexual orientation, seem to understand quite well what pornography is, and what it is for: they produce it commercially, buy it in magazines, rent it in videos, and search for it on the Internet. The pornography industry has the distinct advantage of selling a product that, in legal terms, is considered "expression," and therefore a product that has been declared worthy of constitutional protection under section 2(b) of the Canadian …

"Partial Birth" Abortion And The Health Exception: Protecting Maternal Health Or Risking Abortion On Demand?, Gail Glidewell

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This note, which analyzes the central role of women's health in the debate over the limits of abortion rights, explores the implications of the Supreme Court's decision in Stenberg v. Carhart to invalidate a Nebraska statute banning partial birth abortion. Specifically, this note questions whether the Court's decision in Stenberg effectively requires that all future statutes banning partial birth abortion contain an exception for instances in which abortions are medically necessary to protect the health of the woman, and how such a requirement might be structured. The author answers the question in the affirmative, and argues that while broader exceptions …

The Celebration Of Same-Sex Marriage, Bruce Macdougall

All Faculty Publications

This article explores the nature of discourse about equality, in particular homosexual equality, and situates the current debate about same-sex marriage in that discourse. The author explores the idea that legal discourse about equality moves among sites that may be labeled condemnation, compassion, condonation and celebration. Achievement of real (as opposed to formal) legal equality requires advancement at each of these sites. In Canada, legal discourse about equality for gays and lesbians at the first three sites has been largely successful and contention now is at the site of celebration. Marriage is a profoundly symbolic institution, representing state celebration of …

Feminism At The Millennium, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

Sexism of all kinds – subtle and blatant, criminal and legal, commercial and private – is the topic of the three books under review. The books initially sort themselves out by discipline: Everyday Sexism and Subtle Sexism are anthologies whose editors and contributors are primarily sociologists; Speaking of Sex is written by a law professor and offers a more focused argument about the persistence of gender inequalities. Distinctions in authorship aside, the three books pose a pair of similar and painfully familiar questions: Why is so much still organized to the disadvantage of women, and what can (feminist) academics contribute …

The Sex Discrimination Argument In Gay Rights Cases, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The argument that laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in fact discriminate on the basis of sex is not new. Advocates have been pressing this claim for almost thirty years. Simply put, the argument is that a statute that bars a sexual relationship between two women or two men discriminates on the basis of sex because either partner could have had the same relationship with a person of the opposite sex.

Twelve Years After Price Waterhouse And Still No Success For Hopkins In Drag: The Lack Of Protection For The Male Victim Of Gender Stereotyping Under Title Vii, Stephen J. Nathans

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

A "Clanging Silence": Same-Sex Couples And Tort Law, John G. Culhane

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Vermont Civil Unions, Full Faith And Credit, And Marital Status, Lewis A. Silverman

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Romer, Hurley, And Dale: How The Supreme Court Languishes With "Special Rights", Christopher S. Hargis

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Divorce, Children's Welfare, And The Culture Wars, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Are children harmed when their parents divorce? If so, should parents' freedom to end marriage be restricted? These questions have generated uncertainty and controversy in the decades since legal restraints on divorce have been lifted. During the 1970s and 80s, the traditional conviction that parents should stay together "for the sake of the children" was supplanted by a view that children are usually better off if their unhappy parents divorce. By this account, divorcing parents should simply try to accomplish the change in status with as little disruption to their children's lives as possible. This stance has been challenged sharply …

Accommodating The Public Sphere: Beyond The Market Model, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Essay has two major components. First, in Parts I and II, I describe and critique the Court's opinion in Dale, beginning with an examination of the social origins of scouting, then proceeding to an analysis of Dale. Second, in Parts III and IV, I place the questions raised in Dale in another context in which they belong but are seldom analyzed, that of the jurisprudence of public accommodations laws . . . In conclusion, I join the two major themes by framing Dale's claim as the latest in a series of cases that have invoked an evolving understanding of …

Theorizing Yes: An Essay On Feminism, Law, And Desire, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

In this Essay, Professor Franke observes that, unlike feminists from other disciplines, feminist legal theorists have neglected to formulate a positive theory of female sexuality. Instead, discussions of female sexuality have been framed as either a matter of dependency or danger. Professor Franke begins her challenge to this scheme by asking why legal feminism has accepted unquestionably the fact that most women reproduce in their lifetimes. Why have not social forces that incentivize motherhood – a dynamic she terms repronormativity – been exposed to as exacting a feminist critique as have heteronormative forces that normalize heterosexuality? Furthermore, she continues by …

For The Best Of Friends And For Lovers Of All Sorts, A Status Other Than Marriage (Symposium: Unmarried Partners And The Legacy Of Marvin V. Marvin)" , David L. Chambers

Articles

American governments have recently begun to experiment with new familial statuses for gay male and lesbian couples, who have demanded the right to marry but have been appeased with more modest forms of recognition.4 What I propose here is quite different. It is a status for people who have close bonds but do not want to be married to each other. I call this status "designated friends." Once registered, "designated friends" would obtain a limited number of privileges and undertake a limited number of responsibilities relating to the care for the other when ill or incapacitated or upon death, but …

Proportional Equality: Readings Of Romer, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

One of the great enigmas of equal protection law is Romer v. Evans. In finding sufficient power in the rational basis test to invalidate a state constitutional amendment enacted by popular vote, the Supreme Court left legal scholars in its doctrinal dust, puzzled over the answers to multiple questions. Was this a new rational basis test? If so, how could one know when to apply it? Had the standard of review for state acts adversely affecting lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans changed? If so, to what? Had Bowers v. Hardwick been overruled? If so, why?

From Outlaws To In-Laws: Issues Surrounding The Evolving Legal Status Of Lesbian And Gay Individuals, Christopher S. Hargis

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Proportional Equality: Readings Of Romer, Nan D. Hunter

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.