The Utah polygamy-rights decision is truly a courageous civil rights ruling. Most sexual liberties decisions going all the way back to Griswold v. Connecticut come at a time when the relevant practices have won very broad acceptance, especially among the educated elites. Not so with polygamy, which is quite far from the lives of the […]
Archive | Sexual Orientation
Brown v. Buhman isn’t so complicated
By David Kopel on December 14, 2013 4:35 am in Criminal Law, Fourteenth Amendment, Gay Rights, Privacy, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Sexual Orientation, Supreme Court, Television
To me, today’s decision of the United States District Court for the District of Utah in Brown v. Buhman is much clearer and carefully-reasoned that Orin finds it to be. There may be plenty of blogging on the case, and Eugene’s analysis next week, after he’s had a chance to analyze it, will provide the perspective […]
Gay Marriage in Hawaii
The governor is signing the bill now. Hawaii has come full circle since the 1990s when the possibility of marriage for same-sex couples led to the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act. Hawaii makes 16 states recognizing same-sex marriages.
Response From Religious-Liberty Scholars Supporting a “Marriage Conscience” Exemption
By Dale Carpenter on November 7, 2013 12:40 pm in Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Same-Sex Marriage, Sexual Orientation
Last week I wrote about the response of a group of us (Andy Koppelman, Doug NeJaime, Ira Lupu, William Marshall, and me) to calls for broad religious-liberty exemptions in laws authorizing same-sex marriage. Specifically in the context of the proposed marriage bill in Illinois, which has since passed, we argued that the proposals from several religious-liberty scholars urged for several years […]
Religious Liberty and SSM: A Response to Concerns in Illinois
By Dale Carpenter on October 30, 2013 2:14 pm in Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Same-Sex Marriage, Sexual Orientation
The Illinois legislature is considering a bill that would extend marriage to same-sex couples. In response, a group of religious-liberty scholars have urged the governor and legislative leaders to include what they call a “marriage conscience protection” that would significantly expand the scope of religious exemptions already provided in the bill, and would insert additional substantive exemptions that would […]
DOMA and Dignity
By Dale Carpenter on September 26, 2013 9:43 pm in Beyond DOMA, Federalism, Fifth Amendment, Gay Marriage, Same-Sex Marriage, Sexual Orientation
Why is the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional? Here are two propositions that United States v. Windsor might be thought to stand for: (1) The federal government’s decision not to recognize state-sanctioned marriages of same-sex couples was an unconstitutional intrusion on federalism (a structural claim); or (2) The federal government’s decision not to recognize state-sanctioned marriages of same-sex […]
VA Must Extend Benefits to Married Same-Sex Couples, District Court Says
By Dale Carpenter on August 30, 2013 3:25 pm in Beyond DOMA, Constitutional Law, Equal Protection, Sexual Orientation, Supreme Court
In the aftermath of United States v. Windsor, the Obama administration is adopting a generous position on the availability of federal benefits to married same-sex couples, as co-blogger Will Baude pointed out yesterday in a post on the IRS ruling regarding their federal tax status. So far, in contrast to their almost open resistance to Lawrence […]
Ninth Circuit Upholds “Gay Conversion” Ban
By Dale Carpenter on August 29, 2013 5:15 pm in Constitutional Law, Freedom of Speech, Sexual Orientation
A unanimous panel of the Ninth Circuit has upheld California’s ban on efforts by licensed mental health professionals to change the sexual orientation of minors, a practice often called gay conversion therapy because it’s sought by parents anxious to make their gay kids straight. The opinion in Pickup v. Brown was written by Judge Susan Graber and […]
New Mexico Photographer Loses Discrimination Case
By Dale Carpenter on August 22, 2013 5:16 pm in Constitutional Law, Freedom of Speech, Religion and the Law, Sexual Orientation
In Elane Photography v. Willock, the New Mexico state supreme court has decided to reject a professional photographer’s statutory and constitutional claims that she could not be required to photograph a lesbian couple’s commitment ceremony. Filed under a state law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation in “public accommodations” (which nowadays is often defined to include […]
Russian Parliament Passes Bill Banning “Propaganda of Non-Traditional Sexual Relationships Aimed at Minors”
Russia Beyond the Headlines has the details; the Russian-language text of the bill is here. The bill covers “the dissemination of information, aimed at forming among minors [1] nontraditional sexual orientations, [2] an attraction to nontraditional sexual relationships, [3] a distorted perception about the social equal value of traditional and nontraditional sexual relationships, or [4] […]
Statutory Rape of 15-Year-Old by 18-Year-Old
The Huffington Post has an article titled, “Kaitlyn Hunt, Florida Teen, Faces Felony Charges Over Same-Sex Relationship”; Opposing Views picks it up as, “Florida Teen Kaitlyn Hunt Arrested, Expelled Over Same-Sex Relationship”; Examiner.com, which is linked to by the Huffington Post piece, has the headline, “Florida teen fights expulsion and criminal charges for same sex […]
Three Senses in Which DOMA Implicates Federalism
By Dale Carpenter on March 29, 2013 10:54 am in Equal Protection, Federalism, Same-Sex Marriage, Sexual Orientation
Overnight, it seems, federalism has become a major ground on which the Defense of Marriage Act is being contested. This is surprising because, as we saw Wednesday in the arguments of Roberta Kaplan and the Solicitor General, there were no real advocates for federalism as an issue during the oral argument in United States v. Windsor. No advocates, that […]
The Supreme Court’s Options in the California Same-Sex Marriage Case
By Ilya Somin on March 1, 2013 4:19 pm in Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Sex Discrimination, Sexual Orientation
Georgetown law Professor Marty Lederman has a very helpful post outlining the Supreme Court’s options in the case challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage in the state: [T]hese are the five options offered to the Court: (i) The Court could uphold the constitutionality of Proposition 8 — that is, hold […]
The Bestiality Brief
By Eugene Kontorovich on December 5, 2012 4:20 pm in Constitutional Law, Fourteenth Amendment, Gay Rights, Religion and the Law, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Sexual Orientation, Uncategorized
[Updated with link to Prof. Hayes’s new paper.] The man-bites-dog story of Germany legalizing then banning bestiality raises the question of the constitutionality of such laws in the U.S. Most states criminalize zoophilia, and in many places the bans have been enacted quite recently. Moreover, the laws are from time to time enforced. The 14th […]
Government Out of Bedrooms, but into Barnyards
By Eugene Kontorovich on December 2, 2012 6:52 pm in Constitutional Law, Fourteenth Amendment, Gay Rights, Libertarianism, Privacy, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Sexual Orientation, Uncategorized
I should say at the outset that I approach this delicate subject sheepishly, but this development bears noting. In a rare example of a Western country taking steps to restrict previously recognized sexual liberties, Germany is seeking to ban bestiality. (Its supporters call it zoophilia – are opponents zoophobes?) This will presumably put out to […]