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The First Amendment's Petition Clause As An Alternative Basis For Challenging Voter Initiatives That Burden The Enactment Of Anti-Discrimination Protection For Gays, Lesbians, And Bisexuals, Kevin F. O'Neill
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
In the battle for gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights, most of the fighting has centered on two sources of constitutional protection: substantive due process and equal protection. Unfortunately, courts have been reluctant to find in either of those constitutional guarantees a broad source of protection for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. The purpose of my remarks today is to suggest that the First Amendment—specifically, the Petition Clause of the First Amendment—provides an alternative basis for vindicating gay, lesbian, and bisexual rights in certain cases. At least in the context of voter initiatives that seek to abolish anti-discrimination protection for sexual orientation, …
Personal Harms And Political Inequities, Suzanne B. Goldberg
Personal Harms And Political Inequities, Suzanne B. Goldberg
Faculty Scholarship
When we think back to where the legal battle for gender equality and the rights of gay people stood a century ago, we see that, in fact, there was not much of a battle. Indeed, advocates for change were seldom triumphant. A survey in 1900 would have shown that American women were twenty years away from obtaining the right to vote, were unfit to be lawyers according to the U.S. Supreme Court, and were nowhere near being eligible-let alone required-to serve on juries. The survey would also have revealed a wide-ranging web of federal and state laws and policies that …