Law Commons^™

Negotiating Sex, Michelle J. Anderson

Working Paper Series

“Negotiating Sex” is a response to the two major proposals for rape law reform in legal scholarship today, as well as a proposal for a third way. Susan Estrich and Donald Dripps argue that sexual penetration should be legal unless the victim expresses her non-consent, a proposal I call the “No Model.” Stephen Schulhofer argues that sexual penetration should be illegal unless the defendant obtains affirmative consent for penetration through the victim’s words or conduct, a proposal I call the “Yes Model.” Under this model, according to Schulhofer, if a woman does not say “no,” and “her silence is combined …

Lucky: The Sequel, Martha Chamallas

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Working Paper Series

Lucky: The Sequel is a review essay based on Alice Sebold’s 1999 memoir Lucky in which Sebold describes her own rape as a college student, her experiences as a rape victim and her navigation of the legal system. Chamallas uses Sebold’s rape narrative to explore themes of particular interest to feminist legal scholars. She discusses the intersection of race and rape, the continuing controversy surrounding the categorization of rape as a crime of violence versus a sex crime and the usefulness of considering the social and cultural dimensions of the trauma of rape.

Federalism's Fallacy: The Early Tradition Of Federal Family Law And The Invention Of States' Rights, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

By examining the history of the federal government's role in the regulation of the family, this article joins the work of others who in recent years have begun to piece together the history of the federal government's role in crafting domestic relations law and policy.'⁸ Much of this attention has focused on federal involvement in domestic relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with relatively less consideration given to the pre-Civil War period. Though recent contributions to this field have helped to cure this imbalance, ¹⁹ there remains a strong sense, especially among lawyers and judges, that …

Screening Historical Sexualities: A Roundtable On Sodomy, South Africa, And Proteus, Noa Ben-Asher, R. Bruce Brasell, Daniel Garrett, John Greyson, Jack Lewis, Susan Newton-King

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Proteus (2003; 100 min., Canada and South Africa) is a low-budget feature film, directed by John Greyson (Toronto) and Jack Lewis (Cape Town), that made the international rounds of “art cinema” and queer festivals in 2003 and 2004, with limited theatrical release in New York, Toronto, and other cities. The film advances Greyson’s and Lewis’s experiments with political essay-narrative forms both in their respective documentary, experimental, and dramatic videos dating back to the early 1980s (including Lewis’s Apostles of Civilized Vice [1999]) and in Greyson’s theatrical feature films beginning with Urinal in 1988. Based on an early-eighteenth-century court record, …

Lawrence Beyond Gay Rights: Taking The Rationality Requirement For Justifying Criminal Statutes Seriously, 53 Drake L. Rev. 231 (2005), Donald L. Beschle

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Good Manners, Gay Rights And The Law, Keith J. Bybee

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

In this paper, I argue that the expansion of LGBT rights requires engagement with the common practices of courtesy that confer and reinforce social standing. In order to understand what this engagement with good manners might look like, I outline the basic features of common courtesy and illustrate how courtesy depends on a mix of utility, habit, and pleasure. I argue that if the practice of courtesy is to be re-appropriated, then all three of the factors that underwrite courtesy must be addressed. I also consider the general possibilities for re-configuring courtesy. And, in this vein, I suggest that the …

Reflections On Complicity, Julie Shapiro

Faculty Articles

The author of this article participated in the litigation of Andersen v. King County, Washington in which lesbian and gay couples unsuccessfully sought access to marriage. Although part of the plaintiffs' litigation team, she is a feminist anti-assimilationist and as such, is generally opposed to articulating marriage as a priority of the lesbian/gay civil rights movement. Confronted with the undeniable reality that marriage has become the central demand of the lesbian and gay movement, the author explores the tensions and contradictions encountered during the litigation. The article examines how one might critically manifest resistance even while working for an assimilationist …

Same-Sex Marriage, Slippery Slope Rhetoric, And The Politics Of Disgust: A Critical Perspective On Contemporary Family Discourse And The Incest Taboo, Courtney Megan Cahill

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Check Only One: M/F/Other, Julie Shapiro

Faculty Articles

In this extremely brief essay, the author questions Lawrence Summers' generalizations about women in science. We live in a world of uncertainty about the boundaries of gender. Transgendered and intersexed individuals challenge us to step away from strict categories of men and women.

Lifting The Pall Of Orthodoxy: The Need For Hearing A Multitude Of Tongues In And Beyond The Sexual Education Curricula At Public High Schools, Carlo A. Pedrioli

Faculty Scholarship

When public high schools promote heterosexuality at the cost of denying sexual minority youth the opportunity to learn about minority sexualities, these schools contribute to the disastrous situation in which many sexual minority high school students find themselves. This approach, which many public high schools take, is unnecessarily destructive and warrants prompt change. Instead of helping to perpetuate many of the challenges that sexual minority students face in high school, public high schools can and need to help address these challenges. To establish the case for such a position, this article begins by presenting the plight of many sexual minority …

Adverse Possession Of Identity: Radical Theory, Conventional Practice, Jessica A. Clarke

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article examines the conditions under which acting as if one has a particular legal status is sufficient to secure that status in the eyes of the law. Legal determinations of common-law marriage, functional parenthood, and racial identity share striking similarities to adverse possession law – these doctrines confer legal status on those who are merely acting as if they have that legal status. In each case, the elements of a legal claim are strikingly similar: physical proximity, notoriety and publicity, a claim of right, consistent and continuous behavior, and public acquiescence. The reason public performance is critical is that …

Bad Arguments Against Gay Marriage, Dale Carpenter

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This article claims that three common arguments against gay marriage - the definitional, procreation, and slippery-slope arguments - are quite bad, the worst of the lot. The definitional argument asserts that marriage just is the union of one man and one woman, and that the definition alone is a sufficient defense against claims for gay marriage. The procreation argument claims that marriage's central public purpose is to encourage procreation, and so the exclusion of same-sex couples is justified. The slippery-slope argument claims that the acceptance of same-sex marriage logically entails the acceptance of other public policy changes - notably the …

For The Sake Of All Children: Opponents And Supporters Of Same-Sex Marriage Both Miss The Mark, Nancy Polikoff

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Conservative's Dilemma: Traditional Institutions, Social Change, And Same-Sex Marriage, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Same Sex Marriage And Its Implications For Employee Benefits: Proceedings Of The 2005 Meeting Of The Association Of American Law Schools Sections On Employee Benefits, And Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity Issues, Maria O'Brien, Constance Hiatt, Shannon Minter, Teresa S. Collett

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Maria O'Brien Hylton*: Welcome to this session on "Same Sex Marriage and its Implications for Employee Benefits." I'm Maria Hylton and I will introduce our speakers and moderate the program.

Our first speaker is Constance Hiatt, who is a partner with the Hanson Bridgett law firm here in San Francisco. She represents mostly large employers and large employee benefit plans, including the State of California's 401(k) and 457 plans as well as the University of California's benefits office. So, she has extensive experience in the employee benefits area and she came to us, to me really, through several …

Love, Change, Mari J. Matsuda

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This is morality: to include all as human and entitled to the deepest love and care. This is the distillation of everything the author fights for as a feminist, a critical race theorist, and a peace activist. Since we are at war, having sent to date 1,500 U.S. soldiers off to die, speaking against war and for peace is a current imperative. Then comes this invitation to speak as a critical race theorist on the subject of same-sex marriage.

Without marriage you can do everything that counts in marriage except that which requires the imprint of the state. What you …

Lesbian And Gay Parenting: The Last Thirty Years, Nancy Polikoff

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Admitting Mental Health Evidence To Impeach The Credibility Of A Sexual Assault Complainant, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Gay Is Good: The Moral Case For Marriage Equality And More, Chai R. Feldblum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The struggle for marriage equality in this country is ripe for an intervention. If the effort continues along in the manner in which it has been headed, gay couples may or may not succeed in gaining access to civil marriage. But even if gay couples succeed in "getting marriage," the gay rights movement may have missed a critical opportunity-a chance to make a positive moral case for gay sex and gay couples. In other words, it will have missed the opportunity to argue that "gay is good."

Moreover, to the extent that the struggle for marriage equality focuses solely on …

Screening Historical Sexualities: A Roundtable On Sodomy, South Africa, And Proteus, Noa Ben-Asher

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Proteus (2003; 100 min., Canada and South Africa) is a low-budget feature film, directed by John Greyson (Toronto) and Jack Lewis (Cape Town), that made the international rounds of “art cinema” and queer festivals in 2003 and 2004, with limited theatrical release in New York, Toronto, and other cities. The film advances Greyson’s and Lewis’s experiments with political essay-narrative forms both in their respective documentary, experimental, and dramatic videos dating back to the early 1980s (including Lewis’s Apostles of Civilized Vice [1999]) and in Greyson’s theatrical feature films beginning with Urinal in 1988. Based on an early-eighteenth-century court record, Proteus …

Book Review, Walking A Gantlet: Nielsen’S License To Harass, Lynne Henderson

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Sexuality And Sovereignty: The Global Limits And Possibilities Of Lawrence Symposium: Legal Rights In Historical Perspective: From The Margins To The Mainstream, Sonia K. Katyal

Faculty Scholarship

In the summer of 2003, the Supreme Court handed gay and lesbian activists a stunning victory in the decision of Lawrence v. Texas, which summarily overruled Bowers v. Hardwick. At issue was whether Texas' prohibition of same-sex sexual conduct violated the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution. In a powerful, poetic, and strident opinion, Justice Kennedy, writing for a six-member majority, reversed Bowers, observing that individual decisions regarding physical intimacy between consenting adults, either of the same or opposite sex, are constitutionally protected, and thus fall outside of the reach of state intervention. Volumes can be written about the …

The Impact Of International Human Rights Developments On Sexual Minority Rights, Arthur S. Leonard

Articles & Chapters

The Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) marked the first time that tribunal took notice of how foreign and international courts were dealing with the civil rights claims of lesbians and gay men as part of its discussion of American constitutional law. If this evinces a new openness by the Court to looking at such external sources in gay rights cases, what would it find on the major legal issues now facing the LGBT community in the United States? This article summarizes developments abroad on legal recognition of same-sex partners (including for purposes of immigration status) and military …

Law's Nobility, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article first aims to set out the feminist theory of Catharine MacKinnon as explicitly as possible and in a way that accounts for its incredible power. To strengthen MacKinnon's theoretical project, the article proposes some modifications to the original that are drawn from, in part, the critiques of queer theorists. The crucial departure proposed here concerns MacKinnon's "critique of desire," which in my view is deeply mistaken. Rather than distrusting the sexual desires of women as hopelessly polluted by subordination, we should be neutral -- neither critical nor confident -- regarding the degree to which our desires, if fulfilled, …

A Response To Professor Bix, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

Marriage Equality In New Jersey, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

The question at the heart of the current challenge to New Jersey's marriage law is not a complicated one: Can the state maintain different rules for recognizing the relationships of gay and non-gay couples?

Limited In Sex, They Dare: Attitudes Toward Issues Of Patient Sexuality, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

The author frequently speaks on issues involving the sexuality rights of persons with mental disabilities who are institutionalized. In this article, he discusses the prevalent attitudes of audience members to these presentations, attitudes ranging from anger to denial to projection to transference/countertransference to fear to expressions of religiosity. In some cases, an important connection is made between the speaker and audience members. The article considers these attitudes and seeks to offer explanations for why this is such a threatening topic to so many listeners.

Dimensions Of Equality In Regulating Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Mary Crossley

Articles

Although concerns about individual liberty and the nature and extent of reproductive freedom have tended to dominate discussions regarding the proliferation of and access to reproductive technologies, questions about the implications of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) for equality have also arisen. Despite the high number of invocations of equality in the literature regarding ARTs, to date little effort has been made to comprehensively examine the implications of ARTs for equality. This short Article seeks to highlight the variety of equality issues that ARTs present and to develop a framework for classifying different types of equality issues. Specifically, I suggest that …