LGBTQ

Tushnet and Eskridge on Same-Sex Marriage Cases

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Tushnet and Eskridge on Same-Sex Marriage Cases

On the most recent episode of Lawyer2Lawyer,

hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams will talk with Constitutional Law Professors Mark Tushnet and William Eskridge about what the history of both the gay rights and the civil rights movements have to say for the future of gay rights in America.

• Harvard Law Professor Mark Tushnet specializes in constitutional law and theory, with a focus in examining the practice of judicial review in the U.S. and worldwide. He has served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall. Currently, his focus is in constitutional history and the development of civil liberties. He is known for his critical and controversial analysis of Supreme Court rulings, including Brown v. The Board of Education and Roe v. Wade.

• William Eskridge, Yale Law Professor, focuses in statutory interpretation. He represented a same-sex-married couple from 1990-1995 who sued for recognition of their marriage and has published many books covering the political framework of gay rights. The historical component of his book GayLaw was the basis of an amicus brief he drafted for the Cato Institute and for much of the Court’s (and dissenting opinion’s) analysis in Lawrence vs. Texas, the decision which made same-sex sexual activity legal in every U.S. state.

Andrew Sullivan on Gay Marriage and SCOTUS Cases

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Andrew Sullivan on Gay Marriage and SCOTUS Cases

Last Sunday, Fareed Zarakia interviewed Anderew Sullivan about the conservative case for gay marriage and the recent same-sex marriage Supreme Court cases. 

Here is a description of the interview: 

Sullivan: We’re part of families. Gay people don’t – they’re not born under a gooseberry bush in San Francisco and then just unleashed on the country to improve your dinner party conversations and interior design. You know, that’s not what happens. They’re born and bred in Texas, in Oklahoma, in Alabama. And they’re in the military and they’re part of this country’s entire diversity. And they want to be a part of their own families. And they’re more traditional than you realize.

So then began the battle you’re still battling, which is with conservatives.

Sullivan: I think the great disappointment, the great disappointment is that this was a really, in some ways, a conservative argument. This was a minority group seeking responsibility, commitment, pooling resources.  If you’re a couple and something happens to one of you, you have someone else to take care of you, not the government. There’s a really powerful conservative case for this. And so many of the Republican Party just never grappled with it until it was too late.

But in Kennedy, you know, Anthony Kennedy, Reagan appointee, I think you see the last strains of that moderate conservatism, which is, we do have this new emergent population. How do we integrate them? How do we make them part? I don’t want us to have a separate but equal institution in civil unions. And that was the big threat. And then Bush, when he actually endorsed a federal marriage amendment, suddenly the entire gay establishment were like, oh, we’re with you.

Gay Boy Scouts

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Gay Boy Scouts

Here is the BBC’s take on the recent announcement that the Boy Scouts will be permitting openly gay scouts.  

The Boy Scouts of America organisation has voted to welcome openly gay scouts from January 2014, but a ban on openly gay adult scout leaders will remain in place.

At a meeting in Texas, more than 60% of the national council of 1,400 voting members supported the change.

The campaign to overturn the ban pitted conservatives against liberals opposed to what they deem outdated discrimination.

Teen Faces Felony For Lesbian Relationship

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Teen Faces Felony For Lesbian Relationship

Eighteen year old Florida resident Kaitlyn Hunt currently faces fifteen years in prison for her relationship with her sixteen year old girlfriend.   Here is a description of the story: 

Florida teen Kaitlyn Hunt, 18, started dating her 15-year-old girlfriend last year. The older of the two teens,  Kaitlyn, was arrested and subsequently charged with “sexual battery on a person 12-16 years old.” If found guilty of this crime, Kaitlyn could serve up to 15 years in prison and be required to register as a sex offender. But the assistant state attorney offered a deal: if she agrees to 2 years of house arrest and one year of probation, she can forgo trial.

The case has stirred up controversy about the application of this law: is the crime Hunt is being charged with an abuse Florida’s sexual battery law or is the Florida law itself being applied abusively?

It’s impossible to estimate how many Florida teens have violated the sexual battery statute:809,984 teens attend the state’s high schools and it’s certain that thousands of them are sexually active. Kaitlyn’s family believes the law was misapplied to their daughter for discriminatory reasons.