Sexuality and the Law Commons^™

Defining The Scope Of The Constitutional Right To Marry: More Than Tradition, Less Than Unlimited Autonomy, 70 Notre Dame L. Rev. 39 (1994), Donald L. Beschle

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Using International Human Rights Law To Advance Queer Rights: A Case Study For The American Declaration Of The Rights And Duties Of Man, 55 Ohio St. L.J. 649 (1994), Mark E. Wojcik

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

In addition to violating various provisions of federal and state constitutions, anti-gay ballot initiatives may violate international human rights norms. I see three reasons to invoke international human rights to challenge these initiatives. First, international human rights norms place the struggle for gay and lesbian rights in its proper context as a struggle for human rights. Second, some of the international human rights instruments provide both a source of legal obligation and an additional forum to challenge anti-gay ballot initiatives. Third and finally, if lesbian and gay activists in the United States establish that documents such as the American Declaration …

Hate Crimes, Homosexuals, And The Constitution, Anthony S. Winer

Faculty Scholarship

This Article begins with an analysis of certain features of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and demonstrates that this clause establishes a fundamental right to the equal benefit of laws protecting personal security. Laws protecting personal security must be applied evenhandedly. Any discriminatory application of such laws is presumptively invalid under the Equal Protection Clause. This Article next shows that gay men and lesbians are among the most common victims of hate crime, that hate crimes against gays and lesbians are significant, persistent and widespread, and that gays and lesbians have a substantial stake in the manner …

The Prevalence Of Social Science In Gay Rights Cases: The Synergistic Influences Of Historical Context, Justificatory Citation, And Dissemination Efforts, Patricia J. Falk

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Disjunctive legal change is often accompanied by a period of frantic activity as the competing forces of stasis and evolution vie for domination. Nowhere is the battle for legal change likely to be more sharply joined than when the findings of modern science, in their varied and multifarious forms, are pitted directly against prevailing moral or societal precepts. One of the latest incarnations of this trend is the battle over the legal recognition of gay "rights." In recent history, the courts have been inundated by gay litigants seeking the rights and protections already afforded other discrete groups within society. In …

With All Deliberate Speed? A Reply To Professor Sunstein, Marc A. Fajer

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Homosexuality And The Constitution, Cass R. Sunstein

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Present State Of Sexual Harassment Law: Perpetuating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder In Sexually Harassed Women, Jennifer L. Vinciguerra

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note will argue that current federal legislation was developed, and has subsequently been interpreted by the courts, with little or no consideration for a victimized woman. Instead of addressing the causes and effects of sexual harassment head on, the legislature has largely ignored the realities of sexual harassment as a traumatizing experience faced by thousands of working women each year. Part H of this Note will address the development and current state of sexual harassment law, as well as the Supreme Court's ruling in Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson. Part III will discuss Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as …

The Right Not To Endorse Gay Rights: A Reply To Sunstein, Craig M. Bradley

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Aids In The World, 16 Hous. J. Int'l L. 709 (1994), Mark E. Wojcik

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Gay Rights Through The Looking Glass: Politics, Morality, And The Trial Of Colorado's Amendment 2, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Courts have long struggled to resolve the question of how far a community may go in exercising its power to treat minority members differently. Popular prejudice, "community morality" and invidious stereotypes repeatedly have had their day in court as judges work to reconcile equal protection and privacy rights with their own attitudes about the place of people of color, women and gay people in society. In the early 1990s, the tension between the American ideal of equality and the reality of human diversity starkly emerged. A national wave of citizen-sponsored initiatives seeking to amend state constitutions and local charters to …

Can Wrongs Be Rights? Why A "Conservative" Might Support Legal Protection For Gay And Lesbian People, Marie Failinger

Faculty Scholarship

This article addresses the moral argument about what the state should do to protect the civil rights of those who identify as gay or lesbian. It does not address morality but rather focuses on civil rights, arguing that the two issues are different and should thus be thought of differently by Christians. Using an analogy, the author offers an entrance point to the discussion of homosexual rights by concerning the rights of a smoker. It covers (1) what is at stake in offering protection to homosexual people, (2) the civic argument for civil rights, and (3) the moral balancing argument …

Tying A Slipknot: Temporary Marriages In Iran, Tamilla F. Ghodsi

Michigan Journal of International Law

The purpose of this Note is to analyze the institution of mut'a critically, but objectively. It is important to first understand that it is possible to learn something from this institution. The sanctioning of temporary marriages illustrates the pervasive role of law as a method of social control, a characteristic which has parallels in the West. Furthermore, the institution may be challenged on its merits. For example, this Note intends to illustrate how the lack of formalism and the presence of great ambiguity in the institution have contributed to its lack of acceptance in Iranian society. The institution's deficiencies demonstrate …

A Case Of Clothing And Smell Obsession In A Bisexual Adult Woman, Marianne Wesson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Queer Intersectionality And The Failure Of Recent Lesbian And Gay "Victories", Darren Rosenblum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Amidst the juridical heterosexism of our legal system, the few successful lesbian and gay cases stand out as brilliant, hopeful harbingers of the future. With good cause, lesbian and gay people have hailed state cases that indicate Bowers v. Hardwick has not contaminated all American courts. Although termed "victories" for the lesbian and gay community, several recent New York cases exclude many queer legal needs. Four cases, Braschi v. Stahl Assoc., In the Matter of the Adoption of Evan, M.A.B. v. R.B. and Thomas S. v. Robin Y., embody the law's progress on lesbian and gay issues. This essay …

Sex, Sin, And Women’S Liberation: Against Porn-Suppression., Carlin Meyer

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Hospitalized Patients And The Right To Sexual Interaction: Beyond The Last Frontier, Michael L. Perlin

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Feminism, Work And Sex: Returning To The Gates, Carlin Meyer

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Gay Men, Aids, And The Code Of The Condom, David L. Chambers

Articles

The principal purpose of this Article is to explore the origins and moral content of the code of behavior among gay men that has developed around the condom. A second purpose is to consider whether this code is wise and defensible under current circumstances. A final purpose is to compare the condom rules to the code of sexual behavior that state governments have created in response to AIDS under their criminal laws.

Sexual Freedom And Your Right To Privacy: A Selective Bibliography, Sandra S. Klein

Journal Articles

Like so many other privacy issues, concern over sexual freedom took on more than intellectual overtones with the advent of greater public discussion. As courts and government appeared to enter the most private domain of all, the bedroom, the public's interest in privacy issues dealing with sexual freedom increased dramatically. This bibliography should serve as a valuable tool for researchers who have an interest in this highly controversial area of social concern.

Unburdening The Undue Burden Standard: Orienting Casey In Constitutional Jurisprudence, Gillian E. Metzger

Faculty Scholarship

"Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt." With these words in the 1992 case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme Court ushered in a new era of abortion regulation. Speaking through a joint opinion authored by Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, the Court indicated that from this point forth abortion regulations would be judged by an "undue burden" standard. According to this standard, an abortion regulation is unconstitutional if it "has the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion" of a nonviable fetus.

The Justices who wrote …

Violence Against Lesbians And Gay Men, Suzanne B. Goldberg, Bea Hanson

Faculty Scholarship

Faggot! Dyke! Pervert! Homo!" Just words? Or rhetoric that illuminates and fuels hatred of lesbians and gay men? How often are these words supplemented by the use of a bat, golf clubs, a hammer, a knife, a gun? Studies indicate that lesbians and gay men experience criminal victimization at rates significantly higher than other individuals and are the most frequent victims of bias crime.

Since lesbians and gay men live all across the country – in large cities, small towns, and rural areas – we can be targets of bias crime no matter where we live. From the attacks against …

Law, Morality, And "Sexual Orientation", John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

During the past thirty years there has emerged in Europe a standard form of legal regulation of sexual conduct. This standard form or scheme, which I shall call the "standard modem [European] position," is accepted by the European Court of Human Rights and the European Commission of Human Rights (the two supra-national judicial and quasijudicial institutions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950), to which almost all European states are party, whether or not they are also party to the European [Economic] Community now known as the European Union). The standard modem European …

Facing The Challenge: A Lawyer's Response To Anti-Gay Initiatives, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

We are living in an extraordinary period of gay and lesbian history. As lesbian and gay civil rights gain increasing recognition throughout the country – through small but growing numbers of laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination, court rulings protecting lesbian and gay parents' custody of their children, and a historically unprecedented level of positive media coverage – our struggles also have escalated enormously. Not only must we litigate and negotiate for equal opportunity in employment, housing, and parenting rights as always, but also we face a nationally organized and terrifically well-funded assault on our fundamental rights as citizens.

This nationwide …

Tempering Title Vii's Straight Arrow Approach: Recognizing And Protecting Gay Victims Of Employment Discrimination, Marie E. Peluso

Vanderbilt Law Review

Consider the following scenario: Jerry, an outstanding graduate of Superior University's business school, has worked for Moneytree & Cashdollar, a prestigious investment banking firm, for three years. In that period, Jerry's hard work and keen instincts helped increase Moneytree's revenues by several million dollars. In addition, Jerry received two awards for landing important new clients. The firm's managing partners have discussed promoting Jerry to junior vice president, an executive position typically reserved for qualified fifth year employees. Jerry's supervisors and peers enthusiastically commend his dedication and skill. Two weeks before the vote on his promotion, Jerry lured a particularly valuable …

Parading Ourselves: Freedom Of Speech At The Feast Of St. Patrick, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

Three things are true. First, American society is now absorbed in yet another great civil rights movement, this one on behalf of gay, lesbian, and ambisexual citizens, which will lead ineluctably to the elimination of legal burdens on the basis of sexual orientation.' Change will come slowly, with much backing and filling, and at an awful price measured in human pain. Intolerance for the homosexualities that exist among us, and the homosexual behavior in which many of us engage, will persist in quarters where the law cannot reach.2 Yet private homophobia, deprived of legal sanction, will ultimately be discredited and …

Personal Politics, Terri Mayo

Circles: Buffalo Women's Journal of Law and Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Paradise Lost, Paradox Revisited: The Implications Of Familial Ideology For Feminist, Lesbian, And Gay Engagement To Law, Shelley A. M. Gavigan

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

In this article the author addresses the theoretical and political challenges issued to feminists and feminist scholarship by recent debates and litigation concerning "family" and "family-based" benefits. The argument proceeds in four parts: first, the discussion is relocated within socialist feminist theory. The implications of the qualified pro-family stance in the critiques advanced or influenced by women of colour is considered next, followed by an examination of some proposals to extend the definition of "spouse" and "family" to lesbian and gay relationships. The author is critical of both "critiques" and illustrates with reference to Canadian welfare and immigration law that …

Incompletely Reasoned Sex: A Review Of Posner's Somewhat Misleading Guide To The Economic Analysis Of Sex And Family Law, Martin Zelder

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Sex and Reason by Richard A. Posner

Revisiting Roe V. Wade: Substance And Process In The Abortion Debate, Margaret G. Farrell

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Violence Against Women Act: Civil Rights For Sexual Assault Victims, W. H. Hallock

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.