Law Commons^™

Rethinking Visitation: From A Parental To A Relational Right , Ayelet Blecher-Prigat

ExpressO

The article proposes a new understanding of the right to visitation that challenges the common understanding of the right to visitation as a parental right and as an integral component of the cluster of rights associated with parental status. Instead, it suggests that visitation be understood as an independent right based on relational values. Understanding visitation as a parental right marginalizes relational values and thwarts the development of a coherent theory of visitation. The absence of such a theory could account for the perplexity plaguing visitation issues. Detaching visitation from the cluster of rights associated with parental status and constructing …

Love V. Virginia: The Constitutionality Of The Marshall/Newman Amendment, Pavitra Mohan Ram

ExpressO

My comment explores the constitutionality of a recent amendment in Virginia, the Marshall/Newman Amendment, which bans gay marriage and civil unions between unmarried people, and precludes Virginia from recognizing such arrangements formed in other states. The analysis is particularly timely, because even though the Democrats have regained a majority in Congress, and a traditionally Republican Virginian constituency just elected a Democratic senator, a majority of Virginians adopted this Amendment, indicating conservative values still reign.

The comment argues that the Amendment is demonstrably inconsistent with the mandates of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Constitution. The first provision seeks to ban …

Supporting Children, Balancing Lives, Katharine K. Baker

Katharine K. Baker

This paper examines how U.S. child support policy validates traditional divisions of labor and thereby hinders individual attempts to achieve an acceptable work/family balance. It argues that by using the household as the relevant unit of measurement for child support purposes, family law doctrine legitimates the specialization contracts that arise within households. These specialization contracts, used most extensively in wealthy, elite households, undermine attempts to distribute caretaking and provider roles more equally between parents. The article suggest that by dispensing with the household as the relevant unit of measurement and treating all parents individually, each with a responsibility to caretake …