Freedom of Religious Expression, Hate Speech, and Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

Montserrat Gas-Aixendri is a full professor of law and religion at Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain).

The 2023 Report of the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity [1] examines the intersection between freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief and protection from violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The mandate recognizes the importance of respecting religious value systems and demonstrates a commendable commitment to safeguarding religious freedom for everyone, including individuals with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.

As W. Cole Durham, Jr., points out, the conflicts arising from competing claims of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) and sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) have been key issues in the ongoing “culture wars” for quite some time. Dealing with this clash in a thematic report for the United Nations requires careful judgment and equilibrium.

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Religious Freedom and SOGI Rights: Reflections on the UN Independent Expert Report

In June 2023, the UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity published the report “Freedom of religion or belief, and freedom from violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” The report covers various aspects of a theme that provokes seemingly endless and often bitter debates among human rights academics and practitioners and that draws lines of political polarization in societies across the globe.

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Walking the Walk for Everyone in the Community: Andrea Schneider on Religion, Gender, and Negotiation in Jewish Communities

Andrea Kupfer Schneider is Professor of Law and Director of the Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Cardozo School of Law. Schneider was the previous director of the nationally ranked dispute resolution (DR) program at Marquette University Law School in Wisconsin. In addition to overseeing the DR program, Schneider was the inaugural director of Marquette’s Institute for Women’s Leadership. Schneider has published numerous articles on negotiation, plea bargaining, negotiation pedagogy, ethics, gender, and international conflict. Her recent books include Discussions in Dispute Resolution: The Foundational Articles (edited with Hinshaw and Cole, winner of the 2022 CPR Book Award); Dispute Resolution: Beyond the Adversarial Model (with Menkel-Meadow, Love, and Moffitt); Negotiation: Processes for Problem-Solving (with Menkel-Meadow and Love); Mediation: Practice, Policy, and Ethics (with Menkel-Meadow and Love).

Schneider is a founding editor of Indisputably, the blog for ADR law faculty, and started the Dispute Resolution Works-in-Progress annual conferences in 2007. In 2016, she gave her first TEDx talk titled Women Don’t Negotiate and Other Similar Nonsense. She was named the 2017 recipient of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work, the highest scholarly award given by the ABA in the field of dispute resolution. Andrea Schneider was interviewed by Dmytro Vovk.

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