Legislating for Same-Sex Marriage: Sophistical Effectiveness in Australian Law

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Lilienthal

AbstractThis paper by-passes the various public tropes, such as “marriage equality”, and concentrates on determining whether or not a same-sex marriage law would be sophistically effective in Australia. It revives the ancient Greek sophistical rhetorical skill of proposing a law, and applies it as a critical context to the topic of legislating for same-sex marriage. The objective is to assess whether or not a same-sex marriage law will be effective in its legislative objects. It proposes to discuss whether the parliament could introduce such a law so that the law’s objects were achieved effectively in the public mind. Argument will try to show that introducing a law to create same-sex marriage would fail because of subsisting priestly legislation on the subject of marriage. Its two hypotheses are that the canon law and other English priestly legislation restrict the scope of marriage regulation, and marriage could not be re-defined to cover same-sex marriage. Sections of the paper examining the law historically employ the historiographical method of identifying underlying norms, the effect of which is occasional reverse chronologies. The article’s conclusion will assert that a statute for legal and duly registered same-sex marriage likely would be, according to sophistical rhetorical reasoning, a fiction misrepresenting the truth of the subsisting legal and social institutions of marriage.

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 396-408
Author(s):  
Daniel Ude Asue

This essay discusses Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill in Nigeria, with a focus on the contribution of the Nigerian Catholic Church to the law. Though the Catholic Church in Nigeria did not actively contribute towards the public debates about homosexuality that resulted into the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill it nevertheless welcomed the bill. However, the official teachings of the Catholic Church and elucidations from the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria could potentially contribute to creating an inclusive society. In what way can we potentially utilize the principles of Catholic Social Teaching to make room for an inclusion of homosexual persons in the life of the church and in society?


1892 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-55
Author(s):  
Blackie

I will commence by stating that three reasons have moved me to bring this subject before the Society—(1) Because I found everywhere loose and even altogether false ideas possessing the public mind on the subject; (2) because I much fear that we, the academical teachers of the Greek language, are chiefly to blame for the currency of these false ideas; and (3) because, if Greek is a living and uncorrupted language, and dominating large districts of Europe and the Mediterranean, as influentially as French on the banks of the Seine and German on the Rhine, it follows that a radical reform must take place in our received methods of teaching this noble and most useful language. Now that the current language of the Greeks in Athens and elsewhere is not, in any sense, a new or a corrupt language, as Italian is a melodious and French a glittering corruption of Latin, may be gathered even a priori; for languages are slow to die, and the time that elapsed from the taking of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 and the establishment of the Venetian power in the Morea in 1204, to the resurrection of Greek political life in 1822, was not long enough to cause such a fusion of contrary elements as produced the English language from the permanent occupation of the British Isles by the Normans.


1865 ◽  
Vol 11 (55) ◽  
pp. 327-336 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Edmund Anstie

The present seems to be a favorable moment for directing the attention of the profession to the condition of those insane paupers who are confined in workhouses. A general disposition to criticise the management of these establishments exists in the public mind, and the profession has given unequivocal evidence that it shares in this feeling and is determined to carry out the inquiry thoroughly. If may be safely affirmed that, if this is to be done, there is no part of the subject which demands earlier attention than the condition of those workhouse-inmates who are insane; for the circumstances which call so loudly for reform in the management of “indoor” paupers, especially those who are sick, exist in an extreme degree in the instance of the insane. The upshot of all careful inquiries into these matters, and notably of that inquiry now proceeding in the columns of ‘The Lancet’, is to make prominent the fact that those workhouses which are situated in populous cities are rapidly becoming great hospitals, instead of refuges for tired or lazy vagrants: while, as yet, the guardians who manage them cannot (or will not) understand that this is the case, but persist in treating the inmates as much as possible on the old system, by which the workhouse was a penal residence intended to disgust and repress the applicants for public relief. Under such a régime it has been shown that numbers of acutely sick persons suffer great hardship and have their chances of recovering health and strength materially interfered with; while as for the patients suffering from chronic disease and debility, it can hardly be said that they receive any proper care at all; and it is my purpose in the present paper to show particularly that the insane are the most deeply injured of all classes of indoor paupers by the system usually followed.


2009 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Puja Kapai

AbstractHong Kong recently amended its Domestic Violence Ordinance (“DVO”). During the deliberations, the issue of whether protection under the DVO ought to be extended to same-sex couples arose for discussion and has since been the subject of extensive debate. Religious and conservative groups have argued that including these groups within the DVO risks overhauling the traditional meaning of “family” and could implicitly legitimize same-sex marriage whilst others have insisted that failing to provide equivalent civil remedies under the DVO to such groups amounts to sexual orientation discrimination and is contrary to Hong Kong's international human rights commitments. This paper reviews the various arguments that have been raised against the inclusion of same-sex couples within the DVO and argues that Hong Kong's international and constitutional commitments to the principles of equality and non-discrimination require that samesex couples be brought within the purview of this legislation.


Author(s):  
Fei WU

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract in English only.Xianglong Zhang’s position on same-sex marriage is tolerance with reservations. He contends that Confucianism does not affirm or deny homosexuality as ancient Greek culture or Christianity did, because it regards homosexuality and same-sex marriage as two completely separate issues. By distinguishing marriage from homosexuality, the Confucian view proposed by Zhang neither violates the freedom of homosexuals nor affects the order of marriage and family. It can provide a more sensible perspective for people to understand the relationship between homosexuality and marriage in today’s world.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 192 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.


The political terrain surrounding the legalization of same-sex marriage and the need to accommodate individual's faith based objections have been part of the public discussion since the passage of initial marriage equality statutes. These exemptions played an important part in the bill's passage and have gone largely unquestioned from proponents of marriage equality. This chapter discusses the heightened lawmaking efforts by opponents insisting on broad protection measures for religious claims based on opposition directed towards homosexuality. This Chapter discusses the resulting tension between religious freedom and marriage equality.


Politics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 265-280
Author(s):  
Callum Stewart

Same-sex marriage is emblematic of a crisis of vision in lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender non-binary, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) politics, according to some queer theorists. Through the concept of homonormativity, Duggan insightfully criticizes same-sex marriage politics as spatially privatizing and depoliticizing queer difference. Brown argues, however, that Duggan herself reifies homonormativity. He calls for theorists to imagine the queer potential in non-fixed spatial relations. Given Duggan and Brown’s focus on spatiality, this article approaches queer imaginations beyond homonormativity from a temporal perspective: I ask what transformational potential same-sex marriage holds to queer heteronormative and homonormative temporalities. I argue that same-sex marriage may not only queer the public/private dichotomy, but also subvert the heteronormative temporality of straight time. Straight time produces identities, spaces, and times as fixed, pre-political, and timeless, and is constructed against queer time in which identities, spaces, and times are non-fixed, political, and sociohistorically constructed. By theorizing straight/queer time as politically produced through the reproductive relation between adulthood and Childhood, I repoliticize the temporalities of homonormative and queer imaginaries and recognize children as queer citizens of a queer future. Same-sex marriage may therefore produce two previously untheorized images of queer potential: the Child queered by their parents, and the Child queered by their sexuality.


Author(s):  
Gary R. Hicks

The public’s perception of, beliefs about, and interest in LGBT individuals and the issues impacting them has long had great significance to the community’s social, political, and legal progress. The last decade has seen monumental changes in public attitudes about LGBT people and the laws that affect them in the United States and around the world. Much of this change has been positive, including the landmark Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage. In some parts of the world—even those that have witnessed great strides for LGBT equality—there have also been signs of a backlash against the community’s newfound rights and visibility in society. Stereotypes of LGBT individuals, mostly negative, have been responsible for much of this reaction, as well as their historically negative view in by the public. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the mass media has played a major role in creating and perpetuating these stereotypes.


Author(s):  
Daniel C. Lewis

While many landmark policies affecting LGBT rights have been determined by legislatures and courts, voters have also often played a more direct role in LGBT politics through direct democracy institutions, such as the initiative and referendum. For example, in 2008 California voters approved Proposition 8, barring same-sex marriage in the state and setting the stage for a key federal court decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry (2013). This followed on the heels of 31 ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage in the previous decade. Direct democracy has also been employed frequently to consider a range of other important issues relevant to the LGBT community, including bans on same-sex couple adoptions, nondiscrimination policies, education policies, and employment benefits. Further, as issues addressing transgender right have emerged on the political landscape, local referendums have addressed public accommodation discrimination, including so-called “bathroom bills,” like the high-profile Houston referendum in 2014. Most of these prominent direct democracy contests have resulted in negative outcomes for the LGBT community, spurring concerns about subjecting the rights of marginalized groups to a popular vote. However, some ballot measures, such as Washington’s 2012 vote to legalize same-sex marriage, have expanded or protected LGBT rights. Yet the effects of direct democracy institutions extend beyond the direct policy outcomes of elections and have been shown to shape the decision-making of elected officials as well. Still, studies of both the direct and indirect effects of direct democracy on LGBT rights reveal mixed results that are contingent upon public attitudes and how the issues are framed. When the public is supportive of LGBT rights and views them through a civil right frame, direct democracy has been used to expand and protect these rights. However, when the public views the LGBT community more negatively and views the issues through a morality or safety lens, LGBT rights are put at risk by direct democracy. As such, direct democracy institutions function as a double-edged sword for the LGBT community, simultaneously offering an opportunity to elevate LGBT rights issues onto the public agenda with a civil rights frame and posing a threat to the community when these issues are viewed in a more hostile manner.


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