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The Role Of The 'Natural Family' In Religious Opposition To Human Rights Instruments, Linda C. Mcclain Jan 2007

The Role Of The 'Natural Family' In Religious Opposition To Human Rights Instruments, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter examines how the vision of the natural family articulated by several prominent conservativereligious organizations in the United States shapes their opposition to certain human rights instruments. TheUnited Nations' 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child seems to reflect an advance in internationalhuman rights formulations and to have generated a high degree of formal commitment by governments, as evidenced by its quick and virtually universal ratification. However, the United States stands nearly alone innot having ratified the Convention, and the religious groups examined in this chapter strenuously urge that it should not do so, lest it undermine the …


'God's Created Order', Gender Complementarity, And The Federal Marriage Amendment, Linda C. Mcclain Jan 2006

'God's Created Order', Gender Complementarity, And The Federal Marriage Amendment, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

Does marriage, in the United States, need the protection of an amendment to the federal constitution, which would enshrine marriage as only the union of a man and a woman? In answering "yes" to this question, sponsors and supporters of the Federal Marriage Protection Amendment (FMPA), in the House of Representatives and the Senate, have made various appeals to the gender complementarity of marriage: (1) opposite-sex marriage is part of "God's created order;" (2) procreation is the purpose of marriage and has a tight nexus with optimal mother/father parenting; (3) marriage bridges the "gender divide" by properly ordering heterosexual desire …


A Constitutional Right Of Religious Exemption: An Historical Perspective, Philip A. Hamburger Jan 1992

A Constitutional Right Of Religious Exemption: An Historical Perspective, Philip A. Hamburger

Faculty Scholarship

Did late eighteenth-century Americans understand the Free Exercise Clause of the United States Constitution to provide individuals a right of exemption from civil laws to which they had religious objections? Claims of exemption based on the Free Exercise Clause have prompted some of the Supreme Court's most prominent free exercise decisions, and therefore this historical inquiry about a right of exemption may have implications for our constitutional jurisprudence. Even if the Court does not adopt late eighteenth-century ideas about the free exercise of religion, we may, nonetheless, find that the history of such ideas can contribute to our contemporary analysis. …