Nexus: Chapman's Journal of Law and Public Policy

Marriage restrictionists propound three main arguments in favor of denying the right to marry to same-sex couples: religious freedom, the value of traditional marriage, and the sanctity of marriage. All of these arguments, however, rely on rhetoric rather than reason. They are heavy on emotion and light on facts. And they are profoundly steeped in misplaced idealism.

Religion
Religion has nothing to do with civil marriage. Similarly, recognizing the right of same-sex couples to marry is a civil matter, pertaining only to civil marriage, and has nothing to do with religious freedom. A brief examination of the marriage process in ...

Proposition 8 is in many ways a perfect subject for a blog. The issues and politics of Prop 8 are constantly changing. The latest center of the debate is the role of judicial review in the scrutiny of the results of a ballot proposition. A slice of conventional wisdom seems to suggest that the results of plebiscites should be nearly immune from judicial review. On the other hand, many political and legal scholars are more skeptical, and some even argue that judicial review of direct democracy should be more searching, given that the usual vetting and deliberation has not occurred ...

The aftermath of the campaign around California's Proposition 8 has already seen a major legal challenge to the amendment to California's constitution filed and an ongoing debate develop about the status of same-sex couples married between the time of the California Supreme Court's decision in May of this year and the vote on November 4. Legal scholars are weighing in on both the validity of the amendment and of those marriages and on the much larger question of the role of the courts in attempting to leapfrog legislative processes and compel such a major societal change as ...

On May 15th 2008 the California Supreme Court issued a decision that legalized same-sex on the grounds that the state constitution required equal treatment of gay and lesbian couples. This action became part of a debate asking whether the judiciary was overstepping its authority and legislating from the bench. On November 4th, 2008 Californians approved Proposition 8 which will allow for an amendment to the state Constitution that will ban same sex marriage.

In light of these recent events, Nexus: Chapman's Journal of Law and Public Policy would like to announce the topic of our upcoming journal publication. Volume ...