By Tom Watts* This is the first in a series of blog posts previewing some of the conceptual questions that may come up in the same-sex marriage oral arguments on Tuesday. Part II is here. On Tuesday, we will have the legal equivalent of the Super Bowl, a presidential election, and the finale of Seinfeld at all once: oral argument in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage case. The outcome of the case is in as little doubt as in any major case in recent memory: most …
Religious Freedom and (Other) Civil Liberties: Is There a Middle Ground?
To mark the release of Volume 9.1, Notice & Comment will be highlighting each of the articles in its own blog post. Today’s featured article: Professor Abner S. Greene's Religious Freedom and (Other) Civil Liberties: Is There a Middle Ground? Professor Greene, who is the Leonard F. Manning Professor at Fordham Law School, writes: The question will always be in the details: How do we evaluate the need for uniform enforcement versus the need for accommodation? To insist on one or the other …
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Lawyers Have a Conscience Too: The Role of BigLaw in the Fight for Marriage Equality
By Ana Choi On April 28, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that could finally and conclusively bring marriage equality to all states. Public attention is mostly focused on what the Supreme Court will decide and how they will reach their decision, but this case also brings up interesting questions about the role of lawyers in cases that involve controversial public policy issues. A New York Times article has recently reported that no major law firms …
Religion and Marriage Equality Statutes
To mark the release of Volume 9.1, Notice & Comment will be highlighting each of the articles in its own blog post. Today's featured article: Professor Nelson Tebbe's Religion and Marriage Equality Statutes. Professor Tebbe, a visiting professor at Cornell Law School, writes: To date, every state statute that has extended marriage equality to gay and lesbian couples has included accommodations for actors who oppose such marriages on religious grounds. Debate over those accommodations has …
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What Really Happened in Indiana?
By Allison Schultz On March 26th, Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) into law. Unlike the federal RFRA and most other state RFRAs, Indiana’s law explicitly stated that it could be invoked as a defense in private litigation — lawsuits in which the government is not a party. As the national media quickly pointed out, this meant that Indiana’s RFRA could be used as a defense in, for example, lawsuits alleging discrimination on the basis of sexual …
Same-Sex Marriage: A View from Virginia
The following is a question-and-answer with Stuart Raphael, the Solicitor General of Virginia. Virginia has filed an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs in Obergefell v. Hodges, a Supreme Court case challenging state same-sex marriage bans. Virginia's same-sex marriage ban was struck down by a federal court last year in Bostic v. Schaefer. Q: Virginia’s amicus brief in Obergefell v. Hodges focuses extensively on refuting the “narrowest historical context” approach. Can you give us a brief …
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