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Full-Text Articles in Sexuality and the Law
Gay Liberation In The Illiberal State, Stewart L. Chang
Gay Liberation In The Illiberal State, Stewart L. Chang
Washington International Law Journal
A comparative analysis of incrementalist approaches to gay rights as they are deployed in the United States and Singapore demonstrates that seeking gay rights in a full democracy is actually no better than seeking them in an authoritarian regime. Incrementalism ultimately promotes sexual normativity by dividing the gay community into “good gays,” who deserve equal protections, and “bad queers,” who are further marginalized. Incrementalism in the United States began with decriminalization of sodomy and terminated with the recognition of gay marriage but did so by imagining gay sexuality within the context of committed relationships. The gay rights movement in Singapore …
Public Welfare, Artistic Values, And The State Ideology: The Analysis Of The 2008 Japanese Supreme Court Obscenity Decision On Robert Mapplethorpe, Yuri Obata
Washington International Law Journal
On February 19, 2008, the Japanese Supreme Court delivered a decision declaring that a collection of photographs by the late American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe did not violate obscenity laws in Japan. The fact that the Japanese Supreme Court publicly found close-up and detailed images of male genitalia in Mapplethorpe’s work no longer obscene perhaps makes the decision a landmark one since the present-day restriction of sexually explicit expression in Japan respected the obscenity standard from the 1957 precedent, the Lady Chatterley’s Lover decision, which ruled that the translation of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was obscene. However, close reading …
Gay Marriage: Analyzing Legal Strategies For Reform In Hong Kong And The United States, Robin A. Warren
Gay Marriage: Analyzing Legal Strategies For Reform In Hong Kong And The United States, Robin A. Warren
Washington International Law Journal
Like many countries, both the United States and Hong Kong face the question of whether to legalize gay marriage due to social, legal, and political forces within and beyond their borders. The legalization of same-sex marriage in one jurisdiction forces other jurisdictions to decide whether to recognize marriages celebrated there. Comparing the current state of U.S. and Hong Kong law reveals that only a direct challenge to discriminatory marriage laws will successfully effect change. Two U.S. state supreme court decisions provide examples of effective legal arguments in a direct challenge. Conflict of laws analysis for marriage and the public policy …
Discrimination Down Under: Lessons From The Australian Experience In Prohibiting Employment Discrimination On The Basis Of Sexual Orientation, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan
Discrimination Down Under: Lessons From The Australian Experience In Prohibiting Employment Discrimination On The Basis Of Sexual Orientation, Joshua Colangelo-Bryan
Washington International Law Journal
Australia offers greater legislative protection against employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation than does the United States. This difference is not due to greater social or political awareness on the part of Australians. Rather, Australian federal law results from the work of progressive national committees given wide discretion to address discrimination under international agreements to which Australia is a party. The creation of Australian federal laws is not instructive in the U.S. context because the limited scope of these laws is incompatible with American discrimination statutes. Furthermore, the process by which sexual orientation became a proscribed ground under …