Law Commons^™

Dignity Denied: Religious Exemptions And Lgbt Elder Services, Movement Advancement Project (Map), Public Rights/Private Conscience Project, Sage - Advocacy Services For Lgbt Elders

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

LGBT older adults, like many older Americans in the United States, rely on a network of service providers as they age–for community programming and congregate meals, for health care, and for housing ranging from independent living to skilled nursing. Research finds that a majority of these services are offered by religiously affiliated organizations.

While many of these religiously affiliated facilities provide quality care for millions of older adults, there is a coordinated effort to pass religious exemption laws, issue executive orders and agency guidance, and to litigate court cases to allow individuals, businesses, and even government contractors and grantees to …

State & Federal Religious Accommodation Bills: Overview Of The 2015-2016 Legislative Session, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

Since the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples were unconstitutional, opponents of marriage equality and LGBT rights have largely turned their attention to the enactment of religious exemption laws. These exemptions allow individuals and organizations to violate certain federal, state, and local laws and regulations that conflict with their religious faith. While some proposed bills are state-level variations on the extremely broad and general federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), passed in 1993, a new variety of legislation provides narrower accommodations specifically relating to religious views about sex, …

Engaging With Tradition: Mechanisms, Strategies, And Tactics, Michael Edwards

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

The relationships between tradition and social justice are complex and contingent, conditioned by many factors including social context, individual attachments and mechanisms of transmission and re-enactment. These relationships may be positive, negative or neutral from the perspective of LGBT concerns, and they may be approached in a variety of different ways according to the goals and circumstances at hand. The Engaging Tradition Project aims to explore these patterns in order to establish when and why tradition forms a barrier to the achievement of gender and sexual justice, and to identify how tradition can be deployed in positive ways by activists …