Developments on same-sex marriage defy the Yuletide blogger’s ability to keep up. Last Thursday the New Mexico Supreme Court recognized a right of same-sex couples to marry under the state constitution. The next day, the federal district court in Utah issued a decision declaring that the state may not keep gay couples from marrying there. See a […]
Author Archive | Dale Carpenter
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.
Watch the Final Debate on Same-Sex Marriage in Hawaii
The live feed is here.
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 […]
Illinois House Debating Same-Sex Marriage Now
You can watch it live here. The state senate has already passed the bill. If the state house passes it, the bill would be signed by the governor.
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 […]
How Bigoted Speech Advances Equality
In a splendidly written essay in The Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch makes the case for protecting “hate speech” in the context of a proposed boycott by some gay-rights advocates of the movie Ender’s Game (released Nov. 1). The movie is not itself said to be homophobic but, they urge, it should be boycotted because it is based on a sci-fi novel by […]
Gay Marriage in Oregon (Sort of)
The state’s Department of Justice has concluded that the state’s administrative agencies can (and probably must) recognize same-sex marriages validly performed in other states, even for purposes of providing state-law benefits. The opinion, dated October 16, was revealed in a memo from the head of the state’s agencies directing those agencies to treat same-sex couples […]
Duquesne Federalist Society
By Dale Carpenter on October 14, 2013 10:22 am in Beyond DOMA, DOMA, Equal Protection, Federalism, Same-Sex Marriage
Tomorrow I’ll be discussing the Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor with Professor Lynn Wardle of BYU Law School. We’ll be there at the invitation of the Duquesne University Law School student chapter of the Federalist Society. The event begins at Noon.
New Jersey Supreme Court Agrees to Expedited Consideration of SSM Case
The New Jersey Supreme Court has agreed to hear Garden State Equality v. Dow, a challenge to the state’s limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples. The trial court recently held the law unconstitutional on the grounds that after United States v. Windsor federal benefits remain unavailable to same-sex couples in civil unions, denying them full […]
State Denies In-State Tuition to Same-Sex Spouse of a Servicemember
The effects of federal recognition of same-sex marriages across the full spectrum of federal benefits, including for those domiciled in states that ban the recognition of their marriages for state purposes, are bubbling up on an almost daily basis. According to the Dallas Voice, the University of Texas-San Antonio (UTSA) has denied an in-state tuition […]
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 […]
Bill Introduced by House Republicans Offers Broad Exemptions to Opponents of Same-Sex Marriage (and Non-Marital Sex)
By Dale Carpenter on September 19, 2013 12:51 pm in Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Same-Sex Marriage
Sixty members of the U.S. House of Representatives (58 Republicans and 2 Democrats) have introduced legislation, the “Marriage and Religious Freedom Act” (MARFA), that would prohibit any “adverse action” by the federal government against any “person” who acts on the basis of a religious belief opposing same-sex marriage or opposing sexual relations outside of opposite-sex marriages. “Adverse actions” […]
Labor Department Extends ERISA Protections to Same-Sex Spouses
By Dale Carpenter on September 18, 2013 11:04 pm in Beyond DOMA, ERISA, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Same-Sex Marriage
The effect of United States v. Windsor continues to ripple through federal law, expanding by leaps and bounds the rights and protections afforded to same-sex spouses. The effect has been magnified by a friendly federal bureaucracy under the Obama administration, which is widely adopting a place-of-celebration rule for recognizing same-sex marriages under federal laws using […]
What Will A Proposed Authorization for Military Force in Syria Authorize?
By Dale Carpenter on August 31, 2013 6:05 pm in Constitutional Law, Military, Obama, War and Armed Conflict
Now that the president has vowed to seek Congress’s approval even for what he promises will be very limited military action in Syria, an interesting question arises. What will the authorization authorize him to do? The president will want an expansive resolution, allowing him maximum flexibility to do what he thinks necessary to accomplish what […]