Common Ground Lawmaking: Lessons for Peaceful Coexistence from Masterpiece Cakeshop and the Utah Compromise
Only recently have lawmakers tried in earnest to combine protections for both the faith and LGBT communities, rejecting the zero-sum framing that sees one community as pitted against the other. In 2015, Utah, to the surprise of many, enacted a statewide law protecting. . .
Prospects for Common Ground: Introduction, in Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground
This introduction to Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground--a groundbreaking volume of leading voices in the faith and LGBT advocacy communities, equality and religious liberty scholars, and legislative stakeholders . . .
Bathrooms and Bakers: How Sharing the Public Square Is the Key to a Truce in the Culture Wars in Religious Freedom, LGBT Rights, and the Prospects for Common Ground
In most of the US, access by LGBT persons to public places follows a red/blue fault line. In twenty-nine red states, businesses can tell LGBT people to get out, with impunity. In twenty-one blue states, nondiscrimination laws predating marriage equality, written without marriage in mind . . .
Being Transgender in the Era of Trump:
Compassion Should Pick Up Where Science Leaves Off
In a divisive time, few issues are more polarizing than how Americans treat transgender (“trans”) individuals. This small sliver of Americans—0.6% of all adults or 1.4 million people—has prompted polar responses from legislators and policymakers. Many states have protected trans individuals from...
Matters of Conscience: Lessons for Same-Sex Marriage from the Healthcare Context
It is difficult to ignore the parallels emerging between same-sex marriage and the recently renewed debates about the limits of conscience in healthcare, sparked by refusals to dispense emergency contraceptives. Both subjects are deeply divisive, and in both, persons of good will are saying "why should I have to give up my...
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Squaring Faith and Sexuality: Religious Institutions and the Unique Challenge of Sports
In 2014, the Minnesota Vikings released punter Chris Kluwe from the team for, in his words, his "activism for same-sex marriage rights." Imagine instead that Kluwe was kicked off the team while playing college football at one of the more than 1000 religious universities and colleges in the United States. And imagine that the...
Until the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari on October 6, 2014,1 which made same-sex marriage decisions in three federal Circuit Courts of Appeal authoritative,2 the voluntary embrace of same-sex marriage by state legislatures and voters accounted for marriage equality in more than half of the U.S. ...
Bargaining for Civil Rights: Lessons from Mrs. Murphy for Same-Sex Marriage and LGBT Rights
Summary of the Utah Compromise
In an landmark compromise, Utah enacted a pair of laws last week to balance LGBT rights and religious liberty. One measure, SB 296, bans discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender individuals, while the second, SB 297, protects the right of individuals and religious institutions to maintain the...
The Nonsense About Bathrooms: How Purported Concerns over Safety Block LGBT Nondiscrimination Laws and Obscure Real Religious Liberty Concerns
Although Americans overwhelmingly believe that LGBT people should not be turned away from a business open to the public just for being gay or transgender, no state has enacted protections for all LGBT people against being told that “we don’t serve people like you.” This Article traces the impasse over...
'Getting the Government Out of Marriage' Post Obergefell: The Ill-Considered Consequences of Transforming the State’s Relationship to Marriage
To say after U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision extending the right to marry to same-sex couples that the simmering dispute over marriage turned into a “raging inferno” would be an understatement. Within hours of Obergefell v. Hodges, Texas Senator Ted Cruz called its release “some of the darkest 24 hours in our...