In Perry v. Schwarzenegger, a California district court struck down California’s Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution to preclude same-sex marriage. The opinion is of interest for a number of reasons, some of which have limited applicability outside of the California context and others of which have more general application. This essay focuses on the points in Perry that are of wider application, some of which would seem applicable to all states banning same-sex marriage and others of which are relevant to a subset of those states. [Read more!]

Until 2000 the legal institution of civil marriage was understood to be available only to one man and one woman. In 2000 Californians passed an initiative statute (Proposition 22) reaffirming that understanding. The California legislature then enacted a law authorizing domestic partnerships for same-sex couples that offer the same legal treatment as marriage under a different name. In 2008 the California Supreme Court nullified Proposition 22 and construed the state constitution to mandate that marriage be redefined to be available to same-sex couples. [Read more!]

Religion can be an intensely personal activity. However, the idea that religion is only a private, personal devotion with no public political consequences is relatively new. For many nations in Europe, religion, in particular Catholicism, exerted an important influence over government and politics for centuries. The remnants of this influence still remain in anthems, oaths, and ideologies, not to mention architecture. However, with the rise of an ideology of “strict separation of church and state” in the European Union and the Council of Europe, it has been unclear how countries may incorporate their religious influences and histories into public life and expression. The case of Lautsi v. Italy in the European Court of Human Rights illustrates this struggle between secular ideology and religious faith and affiliation in the European context. The ultimate decision in the case acknowledges that “freedom of religion” need not result in, as the late Richard John Neuhaus put it, the naked public square. [Read more!]

The Religious Liberties Practice Group hosted this panel on "The Ministerial Exception Case: Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC" on Friday, November 11, 2011, during the 2011 National Lawyers Convention. The panel featured Hon. Walter E. Dellinger, III, of O’Melveny & Myers LLP; Prof. Douglas Laycock of the University of Virginia School of Law; Hon. Michael W. McConnell of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School; Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit as the moderator.