Law Commons^™

Romer V. Evans: Gay Americans Find Shelter After Stormy Legal Odyssey, Gary Alan Collis

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sex, Money, And Groups: Free Speech And Association Decisions In The October 1999 Term, Kathleen M. Sullivan

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Disentangling Symmetries: Speech, Association, Parenthood, Laurence H. Tribe

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil; Stemming The Tide Of No Promo Homo Laws In American Schools, Madelyn Rodriguez

Madelyn Rodriguez

In several states, and many more local governments, teachers are being mandated to teach their students that homosexuality is inherently abhorrent and should be shunned. These so called “No Promo Homo” policies vary in scope; from those barring any positive discussion of homosexuality to those which insinuate the association of homosexuality with various social ills. As a result of these policies, teachers are being used as a conduit for misinformation and, more disturbingly, for discrimination and bias. Because teachers naturally have an immense impact on their students, the concepts and values advocated or discouraged by them will have an immeasurable …

Representing Identities: Legal Treatment Of Pregnancy And Homosexuality, Dan Danielsen

Dan Danielsen

This article explores some of the ways in which judges treat pregnancy and homosexuality in discrimination cases. In examining some of these cases, I map some of the doctrinal maneuvers and political strategies which courts employ in representing these traits, and explicate some of the images of gender or sexual identity which the judicial opinions contain. My sense is that looking critically and systematically at the complex and multiple modes in which judges represent pregnancy and homosexuality may improve our capacity for understanding for legal doctrine's potential to embody richer and more satisfying conceptions of selves or identities.

Is False Imputation Of Being Gay, Lesbian, Or Bisexual Still Defamatory? The Arkansas Case, Jay Barth

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

Falsely identifying someone as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) has historically been defamation per se in American courts. In modern times, however, courts have become conflicted as to whether a false imputation of a person as LGB is defamatory. Accordingly, this article examines the roots of defamation law as it relates to sexual minorities, and then examines questions regarding the defamatory status of false identification of another as LGB, whether community or national standards should drive such a determination, and finally, to what degree is any legal recognition of harm to reputation for being LBG a perpetuation of the status …

Modern Marriage And Judgmental Liberalism: A Reply To George, Girgis, And Anderson, Matthew L. Clemente

Matthew L. Clemente

State by state, cantankerous debates about same-sex marriage continue to capture headlines. The outcome of these debates has not only changed the political landscape in United States but has also impacted public policy and legal theory. However, the same-sex marriage debate raises a more fundamental philosophical question—why is the state involved in marriage in the first place? I argue that the best answer to this question is that marriage plays a vital role in modern Western democracies. The right of marriage stems from its social function of habituating the character traits that are essential to effective democratic citizenship.

The standard …

Queer Cases Make Bad Law, James C. Hathaway, Jason Pobjoy

Articles

The Refugee Convention, now adopted by 147 states, is the primary instrument governing refugee status under international law. The Convention sets a binding and nonamendable definition of which persons are entitled to recognition as refugees, and thus to enjoy the surrogate or substitute national protection of an asylum state. The core of the article 1A(2) definition provides that a refugee is a person who has a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership of a particular social group.” A person is thus a refugee, and entitled to the non-refoulement and other protections …