Sexuality and the Law Commons^™

National Report: Colombia, Universidad De Los Andes Public Interest Law Group

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

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 …

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell," The Supreme Court, And Lawrence The "Laggard", Audrey K. Hagedorn

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Paradox Of Statutory Rape, Russell L. Christopher, Kathryn H. Christopher

Indiana Law Journal

What once protected only virginal girls under the age of ten now also protects sexually aggressive males under the age of eighteen. While thirteenth-century statutory rape law had little reason to address the unthinkable possibility of chaste nine-year-old girls raping adult men, twenty-first-century statutory rape law has failed to address the modern reality of distinctly unchaste seventeen-year-old males raping adult women. Despite dramatically expanding statutory rape’s protected class, the minimalist thirteenth-century conception of the offense remains largely unchanged—intercourse with a juvenile. Overlooked is the new effect of this centuries-old offense—a sexually aggressive seventeen-year-old raping an adult now exposes the adult …

Against The New Maternalism, Naomi Mezey, Cornelia T. Pillard

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The biggest challenge for sex equality in the 21st Century is to dismantle inequality between women and men’s family care responsibilities. American law has largely accomplished formal equality in parenting by doing away with explicit gender classifications, along with many of the assumptions that fostered them. In a dramatic change from the mid-20th Century, law relating to family, work, civic participation and their various intersections is now virtually all sex-neutral. As the Supreme Court’s 2003 decision in Nevada Department of Social Services v. Hibbs demonstrates, both Congress and the Court have accepted the feminist critique of sex roles and stereotyping …

The Topography Of Legal Recognition Of Same-Sex Relationships, Edward D. Stein

Articles

This article categorizes and explains the variety of forms of relationship recognition that have emerged in the United States over the last dozen or so years. Five issues regarding same-sex marital andnonmarital relationship statuses are examined: (1) eligibility, (2) benefits, (3) dissolution, (4) recognition from other jurisdictions, and (5) the intersection of state and federal law. The article then offers various proposals about what states should do in the face of the options that have emerged: (a) states that recognize same-sex marriages and nonmarital relationships should adapt their statutes to recognize "substantially similar" relationships; (b) jurisdictions should adopt statutes that …

Genetically Correct: The Political Use Of Reproductive Terminology, June Mary Zekan Makdisi

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Animus Thick And Thin: The Broader Impact Of The Ninth Circuit Decision In Perry V. Brown, Nan D. Hunter

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay is a response to an article by: Eskridge Jr., William N., The Ninth Circuit's Perry Decision and the Constitutional Politics of Marriage Equality, in 64 Stan. L. Rev. Online 93 (2012).

This essay examines the impact of Perry v. Brown, 671 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2012), the first appellate federal court decision on the constitutional validity of marriage exclusion laws. The author argues that the major contribution of the Perry decision is to illuminate the meaning of animus, a term that is sharply contested in Equal Protection jurisprudence, and to explicate its relationship to standards of …

Moving Forward Together: The Lgbt Community And The Family Mediation Field , Mark J. Hanson

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This is a time of great change for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender ("LGBT") community. Members of the LGBT community have gained increased awareness and rights. The United States Supreme Court found state sodomy laws that ban same-sex sexual activity unconstitutional. Thirty-three states have enacted hate crime legislation that protects members of the LGBT community. Recently from the streets of San Francisco, to New Platz, New York and to Sandoval County, New Mexico, LGBT couples have received marriage licenses despite being prohibited by state law. Other states, such as Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont have enacted legislation giving LGBT couples …

Protecting Children From Online Exploitation And Abuse: An Overview Of Project Safe Childhood, Debra Wong Yang, Patricia A. Donahue

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Funding The Fight Against Domestic Violence, Carol W. Hunstein, Joan Prittie, Sherry Boston, Michelle Carney

Working in the Public Interest Conferences

Last October, the City Council in Topeka, Kansas, adopted a radical approach to managing the cots of prosecuting domestic violence— the city repealed its domestic violence law. The move was political brinksmanship, intended to force the county to pick up the tab for prosecutions, but it nonetheless sent a significant message about state and local funding priorities.

Across the nation, declining returns on escrow accounts funding legal services, government funding cutbacks, and reduced giving has left more people at risk of serious harm and death from domestic violence. Panelists will discuss the effects of austerity on prosecutions, preventative services, and …

The Need For Change: Evaluating The Medical Necessity Of Gender Reassignment Through International Standards, Chad Ayers

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Pornography, Amanda Herman

History

No abstract provided.

After Gender: Tools For Progressives In A Shift From Sexual Domination To The Economic Family, Janet Halley

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

After Gender: An Overview, Ralph Wilde

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Prospects For International Gender Norms, Dianne Otto

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fighting Over The Figure Of Gender, Ali Miller

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Human Rights, Sex, And Gender: Limits In Theory And Practice, Lara Stemple

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

What Role For “Women,” “Men,” And Transpeople/Intersex People In Gender Equality?: A Commentary, Edward Stein

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

What Comes After Gender?, Robert S. Chang

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

After Gender The Destruction Of Man? The Vatican’S Nightmare Vision Of The “Gender Agenda” For Law, Mary Anne Case

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

After Gender?: Examining International Justice Enterprises: An Introduction, Darren Rosenblum

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Ninth Circuit's Perry Decision And The Constitutional Politics Of Marriage Equality, William N. Eskridge

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In Perry v. Brown, the Ninth Circuit ruled that California’s Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause. Reacting to the state supreme court’s recognition of marriage equality for lesbian and gay couples, Proposition 8 was a 2008 voter initiative that altered the state constitution to “restore” the “traditional” understanding of civil marriage to exclude same-sex couples. The major theme of the Yes-on-Eight campaign was that the state should not deem lesbian and gay unions to be “marriages” because schoolchildren would then think that lesbian and gay relationships are just as good as straight “marriages.”

Proposition 8 intended that gay …

Equal Protection, Same-Sex Marriage, And Classifying On The Basis Of Sex, Mark Strasser

Pepperdine Law Review

This article reviews several state court analyses of whether same-sex marriage bans violate the equal protection guarantees afforded by the respective state constitutions. The article discusses the lack of uniformity not only with respect to the result but with respect to the kind of classification that is implicated in such bans. The article concludes that unless the Supreme Court corrects some of the misunderstandings regarding the proper application of equal protection guarantees, that jurisprudence will either become even more confused or, perhaps, will coalesce around a doctrine that has been rejected for almost half a century.

Marriage In California: Is The Federal Lawsuit Against Proposition 8 About Applying The Fourteenth Amendment Or Preserving Federalism? , Charles M. Cannizzaro

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Predators And Propensity: The Proper Approach For Determining The Admissibility Of Prior Bad Acts Evidence In Child Sexual Abuse Prosecutions, Basyle Tchividjian

Faculty Publications and Presentations

PREDATORS AND PROPENSITY: THE PROPER APPROACH FOR DETERMINING THE ADMISSIBILITY OF PRIOR BAD ACTS EVIDENCE IN CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE PROSECUTIONS

Basyle J. Tchividjian†

Abstract

The admissibility of prior bad act evidence in child sexual abuse prosecutions oftentimes makes the difference between a guilty and not guilty verdict. Recently, jurisdictions have growingly embraced the admission of such evidence for the purpose of establishing the defendant’s propensity to sexually victimize children. Due to the potentially high prejudicial effect of admitting propensity evidence, it is more critical than ever that courts carefully apply the decisive evidentiary gatekeeper, the probative value balancing test …

Fear Of The Queer Child, Clifford Rosky

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This article is about the fear of the queer child — the fear that exposing children to homosexuality and gender variance makes them more likely to develop homosexual desires, engage in homosexual acts, deviate from traditional gender norms, or identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. This fear is thousands of years old, but it has undergone a remarkable transformation in the last half-century, in response to the rise of the LGBT movement. For centuries, the fear had been articulated specifically in sexual terms, as a belief that children would be seduced into queerness by adults. Since the 1970s, it …

A Law And Literature Approach To Stumped By Debora Threedy, Kristin (Brandser) Kalsem

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In this response, I will begin by identifying questions and issues about Stumped that might present themselves from law in literature and law as literature perspectives. This analysis will be followed by a discussion of the play from a particular law and narrative approach, one that ideologically is allied with feminist jurisprudence and critical race studies. Finally, I will conclude by examining the play in connection with scholarship on the cultural study of law, specifically emphasizing ways in which law and literature mutually constitute one another as opposed to being distinct categories of knowledge.

Originalism And Loving V. Virginia, Steven G. Calabresi, Andrea Matthews

Faculty Working Papers

This article makes an originalist argument in defense of the Supreme Court's holding in Loving v. Virginia that antimiscegenation laws are unconstitutional. This article builds on past work by Professor Michael McConnell defending Brown v. Board of Education on originalist grounds and by Professor Calabresi defending strict scrutiny for gender classifications on originalist grounds. Professor Calabresi's work in this area was defended and praise recently by Slate magazine online. The article shows that Loving v. Virginia is defensible using the public meaning originalism advocated for by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. This article shows that the issue in Loving …

Soul Of A Woman: The Sex Stereotyping Prohibition At Work, Kimberly A. Yuracko

Faculty Working Papers

In 1989 the Supreme Court in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins declared that sex stereotyping was a prohibited from of sex discrimination at work. This seemingly simple declaration has been the most important development in sex discrimination jurisprudence since the passage of Title VII. It has been used to extend the Act's coverage and protect groups that were previously excluded. Astonishingly, however, the contours, dimensions and requirements of the prohibition have never been clearly articulated by courts or scholars. In this paper I evaluate four interpretations of what the sex stereotyping prohibition might mean in order to determine what it actually …