Law Commons^™

Chosen Family, Care, And The Workplace, Deborah Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Employees often request time off work to care for the medical needs of loved ones who are part of their extended or chosen family. Until recently, most workers would not have had any legal right to take such leave. A rapidly growing number of state laws, however, not only guarantee paid time off for family health needs, but also adopt innovative and expansive definitions of eligible family.

Several provide leave to care for intimate partners without requiring legal formalization of the relationship. Some go further to include any individual who has a relationship with the employee that is “like” or …

Dissenting From History: The False Narratives Of The Obergefell Dissents, Christopher R. Leslie

Indiana Law Journal

According to a quote attributed to numerous philosophers and political leaders, “History is written by victors.”1 In the legal battle over same-sex marriage, those opposed to marriage equality have attempted to disprove this age-old adage. In response to the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges—which held that state laws banning same-sex marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment—each of the four dissenting Justices issued his own dissenting opinion. Every one of these dissents misrepresented the circumstances and precedent leading up to the Obergefell decision. Collectively, the Obergefell dissenters have valiantly tried to rewrite America’s legal, constitutional, and social history, all in an …

Why The State Cannot “Abolish Marriage”: A Partial Defense Of Legal Marriage, Gregg P. Strauss

Indiana Law Journal

Does a liberal state have a legitimate interest in defining the terms of intimate relationships? Recently, several scholars have answered this question with a no and concluded that the state should abolish marriage, along with all other categories of intimate status. While politically infeasible, these proposals offer a powerful thought experiment. In this Article, I use this thought experiment to argue that the law cannot avoid relying on intimate-status norms and has legitimate reasons to retain an intimate status like marriage.

The argument has three parts. The primary lesson of the thought experiment is that the state cannot abolish intimate …

A Marriage By Any Other Name: Why Civil Unions Should Receive Federal Recognition, Deborah A. Widiss, Andrew Koppelman

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

The federal government now recognizes same-sex marriages as triggering rights and responsibilities under federal law. However, it still generally refuses to recognize alternative legal statuses—civil unions and domestic partnerships—that were created by states to serve as functional marriages. Even though all the states that created such alternative statuses now permit same-sex couples to marry, this misguided policy causes ongoing harms. Some same-sex couples who entered into alternative relationships when marriage was not an option may now lack the capacity to marry. Couples who have since married may also be hurt by the federal government’s refusal to recognize civil unions or …

Baker V. Nelson: Flotsam In The Tidal Wave Of Windsor's Wake, David B. Cruz

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

Part I of this Article sketches the virtually unbroken string of pro-marriage decisions in the lower federal and state courts since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in United States v. Windsor to give a sense of the size and magnitude of this “tidal wave” of precedent. Next, Part II briefly explores some of the reasons that might help account for the flood of litigation and overwhelmingly positive outcomes. Part III tentatively suggests one way this flow of decisions in favor of marriage equality might influence the Supreme Court as it returns to the issue. Part II then at some …

Doctoring Discrimination In The Same-Sex Marriage Debates, Elizabeth Sepper

Indiana Law Journal

As the legalization of same-sex marriage spreads across the states, some religious believers refuse to serve same-sex married couples. In the academy, a group of law and religion scholars frames these refusals as “conscientious objection” to the act of marriage. They propose “marriage conscience protection” that would allow public employees and private individuals or businesses to refuse to “facilitate” same-sex marriages. They rely on the theoretical premise that commercial actors’ objections to marriage are equivalent to doctors’ objections to controversial medical procedures. They model their proposal on medical conscience legislation, which allows doctors to refuse to perform abortions. Such legislation, …

Reconfiguring Sex, Gender, And The Law Of Marriage, Deborah Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article brings together legal, historical, and social science research to analyze how couples allocate income-producing and domestic responsibilities. It develops a framework—what I call the marriage equation—that shows how sex-based classifications, (non-sex-specific) substantive marriage law, and gender norms interrelate to shape these choices. Constitutional decisions in the 1970s ended legal distinctions between the duties of husbands and wives but left largely in place both gender norms and substantive rights within marriage, tax, and benefits law that encourage specialization into breadwinning and caregiving roles. By permitting disaggregation of the marriage equation, the new reality of same-sex marriage can serve as …

Say "I Do": The Judicial Duty To Heighten Constitutional Scrutiny Of Immigration Policies Affecting Same-Sex Binational Couples, Cori K. Garland

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Exposing Sex Stereotypes In Recent Same-Sex Marriage Jurisprudence, Deborah A. Widiss, Elizabeth Rosenblatt, Douglas Nejaime

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article examines sex discrimination arguments in recent same-sex marriage cases. Since 1993, when the Hawaii Supreme Court held in Baehr v. Lewin that denying same-sex couples the right to marry could state a claim of sex discrimination, every state high court to consider the issue has rejected the claim. But many recent decisions have in fact relied upon sex-based stereotypes to justify marriage restrictions. These include claims that men and women, simply by virtue of their gender, provide distinct role models for children; that men and women play "opposite" or "complementary" roles within marriage; and that marriage is essential …