Law Commons^™

Incrementalism, Civil Unions, And The Possibility Of Predicting Legal Recognition Of Same-Sex Marriage, Erez Aloni

Erez Aloni

Scholars who have examined the legal recognition of same-sex partnerships in European countries have concluded that the path to the legalization of same-sex marriage follows an incremental process involving specific stages. They suggest that it is possible to predict, based on certain visible social and legal processes or assessable parameters, which U.S. states will be the next to recognize same-sex marriage. These scholars argue that such small cumulative legal changes at the state level constitute the best means of legalizing same-sex marriage in the United States, and that civil unions are a necessary step in this process. This article shows …

'Homosexists': Fanatical Misogynists, Judith A. Reisman Phd

Judith A. Reisman

No abstract provided.

Replacing Context For Plain Meaning In United States V. Cox

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unraveling Lawrence's Concerns About Legislated Morality: The Constitutionality Of Laws Criminalizing The Sale Of Obscene Devices, Nathan R. Curtis

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Take 'Pride' In A Death Sentence?, Judith A. Reisman Phd

Judith A. Reisman

No abstract provided.

Privacy Torts: Unreliable Remedies For Lgbt Plaintiffs, Anita L. Allen

All Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, both constitutional law and tort law recognize the right to privacy, understood as legal entitlement to an intimate life of one’s own free from undue interference by others and the state. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (“LGBT”) persons have defended their interests in dignity, equality, autonomy, and intimate relationships in the courts by appealing to that right. In the constitutional arena, LGBT Americans have claimed the protection of state and federal privacy rights with a modicum of well-known success. Holding that homosexuals have the same right to sexual privacy as heterosexuals, Lawrence v. Texas symbolizes the …

Big Porno And California's Pot Prop, Judith A. Reisman Phd

Judith A. Reisman

No abstract provided.

Kinsey Minions Continue Child Sex Abuse, Judith A. Reisman Phd

Judith A. Reisman

No abstract provided.

The Least Of These: A Constitutional Challenge To North Carolina's Sexual Offender Laws And N.C. Gen. Stat. Sec. 14-208.18, Brian P. Livecchi

North Carolina Central Law Review

No abstract provided.

El Papel De La Educación Y Las Ong’S En Mejorar El Acceso A Derechos Para Inmigrantes: El Caso De Los Derechos Sexuales Y Reproductivos = The Role Of Education And Ngo’S In Helping Immigrants Obtain Better Access To Their Rights: The Specific Case Of Sexual And Reproductive Rights, Amy Torres

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In January of 2004, Argentina approved a new immigration law that guaranteed the protection of human rights for all immigrants in the country regardless of their legal status with the State. Among the rights explicitly guaranteed by this law were the right to migrate, the right to education and the right to health care. While this law represents a significant advance by the Argentine government in protecting the human rights of immigrants, oppressive mechanisms still remain in everyday practices that inhibit actual access to their rights.

Considering the changes in the law and the breach between the laws and everyday …

Sex And The Supremes: Towards A Legal Theory Of Sexuality, Elaine Craig

PhD Dissertations

This thesis examines how the Supreme Court of Canada, across legal contexts, has tended to conceptualize sexuality. It focuses primarily on areas of public law including sexual assault law, equality for sexual minorities, sexual harassment and obscenity and indecency laws. There were a number of trends revealed upon reviewing the jurisprudence in this area. First, the Court’s decisions across legal contexts reveal a tendency to conceptualize sexuality as innate, as a pre-social naturally occurring phenomenon and as an essential element of who we are as individuals. This is true whether one is speaking of the approach to gay and lesbian …

"Workers Of God": The Holy See's Liability For Clerical Sexual Abuse, Jacob W. Neu

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the 1970s, no Boston priest was more electrifying than Paul Richard Shanley. Ordained in 1960, he sought and received from his bishop, Boston cardinal Humberto Medeiros, a mission to minister to "sexual minorities" in 1970 and became a well-known Boston "street priest."' Wearing jeans and smoking Kool cigarettes, he gathered about him runaway gay teenagers and advocated fiercely for gay rights. Yet one of the boys drawn to him was the same one Shanley would be convicted of sexually abusing in 2005. In a civil suit seeking damages from the Archdiocese of Boston for its role in hiding Shanley's …

A Tale Of Two Families -- Red Families V. Blue Families: Legal Polarization And The Creation Of Culture By Naomi Cahn & June Carbone, Rachel Rebouché

UF Law Faculty Publications

In their thought-provoking book, Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture, Naomi Cahn and June Carbone examine conflicting views on family formation in the "culture war." Mirroring the electoral maps of 2004 and 2008, the authors contend that regional differences between Republican and Democrat voters correspond to deeply held beliefs about family values. The "blue" family paradigm is essentially liberal: It stresses individual equality, tolerance of diverse lifestyles, and a role for government in helping people achieve educational and economic success. "Red" families are conservative. They value tradition, as expressed in religious beliefs or longstanding …

“For Any Reason”: Paper Promises To Protect Service Members, Tami Martin

Legislation and Policy Brief

In short, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) is the law that prohibits lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals from serving openly in the military. Despite the fact that the Obama Administration has yet to fulfill the campaign promise of ending DADT, many believe the question is more "when" than "if" it will be repealed. Much attention has focused on ending the policy, but it is also important to consider what might happen after repeal. This article briefly examines the history of DADT, major policies meant to protect service members from harassment they experience because of their actual or perceived sexual …

Revisiting The Role Of The Psychological Parent In The Dissolution Of The Homosexual Relationship, Caroline L. Kinsey

Buffalo Journal of Gender, Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Muslim Female Slavery And Porn In Baghdad, Judith A. Reisman Phd

Judith A. Reisman

No abstract provided.

The Cross-Dressing Case For Bathroom Equality, Jennifer Levi, Daniel Redman

Seattle University Law Review

While transgender rights advocates have won many battles in the fight for equality, bathroom discrimination remains a significant obstacle to transgender people’s full participation in society. This Article discusses the reasoning behind the cases that have rejected transgender people’s discrimination claims based on bathroom exclusion. The Article then demonstrates how these arguments mirror the rationales offered by supporters of long-dead, unconstitutional cross-dressing laws. Synthesizing the two bodies of case law, Levi and Redman offer a new way forward for transgender advocates seeking bathroom equality.

Reflexiones A Propósito Del Reconocimiento En Argentina Del Matrimonio Igualitario Y El Rol Que Le Corresponde A La Esfera Judicial, Beatriz Ramirez

Beatriz Ramirez

Through The Looking Glass: Finding And Freeing Modern-Day Slaves At The State Level, Michelle L. Rickert

Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article delves into the interaction between federal and state laws prohibiting human trafficking. The article advocates for comprehensive human trafficking laws at the state level, including police training, victim aftercare, forfeiture, and prosecution as essential elements. It looks comprehensively at the existing state laws prohibiting human trafficking. Additionally it examines the five existing models for state law and suggests benefits and potential improvements for each model. The article concludes y advocating a holistic law prohibiting human trafficking in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

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 …

Asking The Man Question: Masculinities Analysis And Feminist Theory, Nancy E. Dowd

UF Law Faculty Publications

Masculinities scholarship is an essential piece of feminist analysis and of critical equality analysis. It requires that we "ask the man question" to further unravel inequalities. This symposium marks one of several movements toward examining and considering what masculinities scholarship can offer. In this introduction, I suggest a framework of masculinities analysis and describe its relationship to feminist theory. First, I consider why we should ask the "man question," and how we should ask it. Second, I explore how masculinities analysis might be useful in our examination of the "man question." Masculinities work can be used to understand more clearly …

The (Mis)Categorization Of Sex In Anglo-American Cases Of Transsexual Marriage, John Parsi

Michigan Law Review

The United States' promise to establish equality for all has been challenged by post-operative transsexuals seeking recognition in their acquired sex. The birth certificate is the legal gateway to changing other legal documents; but the process for changing the birth certificate varies widely from state to state. This lack of national uniformity makes post-operative transsexuals' recognition of their acquired sex complicated at best and impossible at worst. This Note details the legal progression from non-recognition to recognition of post-operative transsexuals' acquired sex in the United Kingdom and through the European Court of Human Rights. The Note goes on to explore …

Diverging Family Structure And “Rational” Behavior: The Decline In Marriage As A Disorder Of Choice, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

The past fifty years have witnessed a growing divergence in family structure by social class, income, education, and race. The goal is to explain why significant segments of the population are moving away from the traditional patterns of family and reproduction. Most demographers acknowledge that external and material constraints fail to account for most of the present dispersion by class and race in marriage, divorce, and patterns of childbearing. Nor do these factors explain the widening of disparities over time. In attempting to improve on prior theories, this paper proposes a different explanation for these developments. It argues that demographic …

Sexual Politics And Social Change, Darren L. Hutchinson

Darren L Hutchinson

The Article examines the impact of social movement activity upon the advancement of GLBT rights. It analyzes the state and local strategy that GLBT social movements utilized to alter the legal status of sexual orientation and sexuality following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick. Successful advocacy before state and local courts, human rights commissions, and legislatures fundamentally shifted public opinion and laws regarding sexual orientation and sexuality between Bowers and the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lawrence v. Texas. This altered landscape created the “political opportunity” for the Lawrence ruling and made the opinion relatively “safe.” Currently, GLBT rights …

A Turbulent Debate In The Ocean State, Dylan D. Lynch

Senior Honors Projects

Rhode Island has in many ways become the last battleground in a national state-by-state battle over the legalization of gay marriage. It is the last state in the country to not have a definitive stance on whether or not same-sex marriages should be legal and can be performed within the state’s borders, or should be banned and marriage defined solely as the union of a man and a woman. The state is currently undergoing a substantial swing in public support on gay marriage, moving from just 34% in 2004, to 60% in 2009. This rise in support for legalizing gay …

Erasing Boundaries: Masculinities, Sexual Minorities, And Employment Discrimination, Ann C. Mcginley

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article analyzes the application of employment discrimination law to sexual minorities-lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and intersex individuals. It evaluates Title VII and state anti-discrimination laws' treatment of these individuals, and is the first article to use masculinities research, theoretical and empirical, to explain employment discrimination against sexual minorities.

While the Article concludes that new legislation would further the interests of sexual minorities, it posits that it is neither necessary nor sufficient to solving the employment discrimination problems of sexual minorities. A major problem lies in the courts' binary view of sex and gender, a view that identifies men and …

Issue 4: Table Of Contents

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Prosecute The Cheerleader, Save The World?: Asserting Federal Jurisdiction Over Child Pornography Crimes Committed Through "Sexting", Isaac A. Mcbeth

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

What Is Due To Others: Speaking And Signifying Subject(S) Of Rape Law, Penelope J. Pether

Working Paper Series

Australian journalist Paul Sheehan's representation of the alleged and convicted immigrant Muslim/Arab rapists he demonises in 'Girls Like You', like his representation of the rape survivors in that text, has much to tell us about the law's production of rape law's speaking and signifying subjects, “real rape” victims and survivors, false accusers and perpetrators. This article uses a variety of texts, including 'Girls Like You', recent Australian rape law jurisprudence and legislative reform, texts involving two controversial recent US rape cases — one from Maryland and one from Nebraska — and a recent UK study on attrition in rape prosecutions, …

Attitudes Towards Megan's Law And Juvenile Sex Offenders, Debra Lee Cochrane

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Sex offender registration laws are very controversial. All fifty states require adult sex offenders to register. Twenty-eight states have extended registration and community notification requirements to juveniles (Hiller, 1998). These states seem to have failed to look at the uniqueness of juvenile sex offending. Juveniles have a very low recidivism rate and complex issues of culpability from age-of-consent laws. Applying Megan's Law to juveniles could have considerable negative consequences for juveniles' social development, particularly because one of the main stipulations of the law requires the juvenile to notify their school. Rehabilitation is a key factor of the juvenile justice system …