Obergefell, Our Common Humanity, and Putting Children First

 

 

 


Tanner Bean is an Attorney with the law firm Fabian VanCott in Salt Lake City, Utah

Robin Fretwell Wilson is Director, Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois System & Roger and Stephany Joslin Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law

However a person viewed marriage equality in the run up to Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 United States Supreme Court case that opened marriage to same-sex couples, it showed that marriage matters to Americans. The plaintiffs in Obergefell sought access to marriage on the same grounds as heterosexual couples, for reasons as pedestrian as filing joint taxes (just one of over a thousand statutory benefits of marriage) to those as meaningful as joining their lives in ways that communities and families recognize as significant. (more…)

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Postmodern Marriages for Postmodern Times: The Obergefell Case and the Strasbourg Court’s Jurisprudence


Dr. Eugenia Relaño Pastor is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Law and Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Germany).

 

“When the heart speaks, the mind finds indecent to object.”
(Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

 The exclusion of same-sex couples from the right to marry remains a reality in some EU Member States.[1] But increasing recognition of same-sex marriage and/or same-sex registered partnerships by European legislatures as well as national and supranational courts shows a step forward for the rights of same-sex couples.[2]

The United States and Europe have faced a similar divergence of public opinion and judicial decisions regarding same-sex marriage, so similar in fact that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), frequently referred to as the Strasbourg Court, in Oliari and Others v. Italy devoted substantial attention to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges. In Oliari, the Strasbourg Court specifically highlighted the following SCOTUS points: (more…)

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Synergy and Conflict—Competing and Overlapping Interests of Freedom of Religion or Belief and Equality

Dr. Mine Yıldırım is Head of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee’s Freedom of Belief Initiative in TurkeyIssues relating to freedom of religion or belief and non-discrimination continue to provide a source for vigorous debate within parts of the human rights community.

The Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief published on 27 February 2020, which addresses gender-based violence and discrimination in the name of religion or belief, provides analyses and recommendations that drive further reflection on the various components of the right to freedom of religion or belief, including its scope, the subjects of the rights involved, and the obligations of states and other parties. While the Report claims to see “freedom of religion or belief and non-discrimination as mutually reinforcing rights,” this is not consistently the case. The Report rightly emphasizes that the right to freedom of religion or belief belongs to everyone, including men, women, and LGBT+ individuals, and that certain acts cannot be protected as manifestations of religion or belief and therefore must be restricted. However, as I indicate below, a more nuanced conception of autonomy and “collectivities” exists that the Report could have adopted to capitalize on the synergies between the freedom of religion or belief and equality. (more…)

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