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Full-Text Articles in Law
Tyrone Garner's Lawrence V. Texas, Marc Spindelman
Tyrone Garner's Lawrence V. Texas, Marc Spindelman
Michigan Law Review
Dale Carpenter's Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas has been roundly greeted with well-earned praise. After exploring the book's understanding of Lawrence v. Texas as a great civil rights victory for lesbian and gay rights, this Review offers an alternative perspective on the case. Built from facts about the background of the case that the book supplies, and organized in particular around the story that the book tells about Tyrone Garner and his life, this alternative perspective on Lawrence explores and assesses some of what the decision may mean not only for sexual orientation equality but also for …
The Constitutional Right To (Keep Your) Same-Sex Marriage, Steve Sanders
The Constitutional Right To (Keep Your) Same-Sex Marriage, Steve Sanders
Michigan Law Review
Same-sex marriage is now legal in six states, and tens of thousands of same-sex couples have already gotten married. Yet the vast majority of other states have adopted statutes or constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. These mini-defense of marriage acts not only forbid the creation of same-sex marriages; they also purport to void or deny recognition to the perfectly valid same-sex marriages of couples who migrate from states where such marriages are legal. These nonrecognition laws effectively transform the marital parties into legal strangers, causing significant harms: property rights are potentially altered, spouses disinherited, children put at risk, and financial, …
Ely At The Altar: Political Process Theory Through The Lens Of The Marriage Debate, Jane S. Schacter
Ely At The Altar: Political Process Theory Through The Lens Of The Marriage Debate, Jane S. Schacter
Michigan Law Review
Political process theory, closely associated with the work of John Hart Ely and footnote four in United States v. Carolene Products, has long been a staple of constitutional law and theory. It is best known for the idea that courts may legitimately reject the decisions of a majority when the democratic process that produced the decision was unfair to a disadvantaged social group. This Article analyzes political process theory through the lens of the contemporary debate over same-sex marriage. Its analysis is grounded in state supreme court decisions on the constitutionality of barring same-sex marriage, as well as the high-profile, …
Disgust And The Problematic Politics Of Similarity, Courtney Megan Cahill
Disgust And The Problematic Politics Of Similarity, Courtney Megan Cahill
Michigan Law Review
Martha Nussbaum's latest book, From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation & Constitutional Law, could not have come at a more opportune time in the history of gay rights in the United States. All signs point to progress toward "humanity," from same-sex couples' successful bids for marriage equality in a handful of states to the public's increasing acceptance of the prospect of gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. Even if recent cognitive science research indicates that same-sex relationships provoke more than a little disgust in some people, landmark marriage-equality victories in a few states suggest that the law is …
Finding Gold In The Rainbow Rights Movement, Shayna S. Cook
Finding Gold In The Rainbow Rights Movement, Shayna S. Cook
Michigan Law Review
In her history of the past fifty years of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement, Patricia Cain recounts the litigation successes and failures that contributed to the legal status of gays and lesbians in the Untied States today. Clearly an insider who has marched with the movement every step of the way, Cain provides a comprehensive account of all fronts of the battle in state and federal courts since 1950. But while Rainbow Rights serves as a good primer on the legal challenges and the key themes uniting them, the book reads like an account of a struggle ending …
History Unbecoming, Becoming History, Toni M. Massaro
History Unbecoming, Becoming History, Toni M. Massaro
Michigan Law Review
The last few decades have seen a torrent of legal commentary supporting gay equality and attacking the punishment, failure to protect, and refusal to affirm gay conduct and identity. William Eskridge, a prominent voice in this fin-de-siecle literature, now draws together and expands on his previous work in Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet. Though far more successful in shaping the uses of the past than in showing the way to the future, the book instructs even where it fails. It augurs a century that could well witness the end of official discrimination against gay individuals, and the relegation …
Word Games, War Games, Diane H. Mazur
Word Games, War Games, Diane H. Mazur
Michigan Law Review
In 1993, the country's interest in the issue of military service by gay citizens escalated to a level that can only be described as a national obsession, and "obsession" is by no means too strong a term. The subject of gay servicemembers was debated within all three branches of government, all ranks of the military, and all walks of civilian life.1 The issue of military service by gay citizens became a line in the sand, a cultural standoff on issues as sensitive and disparate as sexuality, patriotism, civil rights, and civic obligation. Janet Halley2 returns to that time of obsession …
Attainder And Amendment 2: Romer's Rightness, Akhil Reed Amar
Attainder And Amendment 2: Romer's Rightness, Akhil Reed Amar
Michigan Law Review
Call me silly. In fact, call me terminally silly. For despite Justice Scalia's remarkably confident claim, I believe, and shall try to prove below, that the Romer Court majority opinion invalidating Colorado's Amendment 2 was right both in form and in substance, both logically and sociologically. I stress "form" and "logic" at the outset because I share Justice Scalia's belief in the importance of these things in constitutional adjudication. I also share his commitment to constitutional text, history, and structure, and his suspicion of "free-form" constitutionalism. And so I shall highlight the text, history, and spirit of a constitutional clause …
Is Amendment 2 Really A Bill Of Attainder? Some Questions About Professor Amar's Analysis Of Romer, Roderick M. Hills Jr.
Is Amendment 2 Really A Bill Of Attainder? Some Questions About Professor Amar's Analysis Of Romer, Roderick M. Hills Jr.
Michigan Law Review
As I first discovered as a law student in Professor Amar's classes on legal history and federal courts, it is generally an intellectual treat to listen to Professor Amar's legal analysis, even when he is attacking one's own arguments. So my pleasure at reading Professor Amar's analysis of the Court's decision in Romer v. Evans was only partly dampened by his disapproval of the respondents' brief that I and other plaintiffs' counsel filed with the Court. According to Amar, this respondents' brief provided the Court with "so little help" that it had to rely on an entirely different and much …