Debra L. DeLaet

Gay Marriage as a Religious Right: Reframing the Legal Debate over Gay Marriage in the United States

The definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman has origins in sectarian religious views of marriage. Nevertheless, proponents of gay marriage have not yet fully explored the religious discrimination inherent in public policies that embrace this sectarian definition of marriage. Instead, advocates of gay marriage have largely relied on “equal rights” arguments or claims based on substantive due process and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to make the case that gay marriage should be legalized. In an effort to address the religious underpinnings of arguments against gay marriage, this article will consider the implications of using a “religious rights” as opposed to an “equal rights” framework to analyze the debate over gay marriage. This piece will examine pertinent U.S. legal cases related to religious freedom, particularly Establishment Clause jurisprudence, and their applicability to the argument that gay marriage can be framed as a religious right. It also will consider the limitations of framing gay marriage as a religious right.

Genital Autonomy, Children’s Rights, and Competing Rights Claims in International Human Rights Law *

Claims that genital autonomy should be considered a human right call into question medically unnecessary genital alterations, including genital cutting of both boy and girl children, the forced or coerced circumcision of adults, and surgical alterations performed on the genitals of intersex children prior to the age of consent. To date, global norms suggest only a narrow applicability of any right to genital autonomy. International organizations, states, and non-governmental organizations increasingly condemn genital cutting of girls and women but generally tolerate both the genital cutting of boys and men and the surgical alteration of the genitals of intersex children. In examining assertions that genital autonomy should be considered a human right, the article considers competing rights claims, including religious and cultural rights, parental rights, and contending perspectives on health rights. Ultimately, this article highlights the limitations of international human rights law as a tool for promoting a right to genital autonomy.

A Pedagogy of Civic Engagement for the Undergraduate Political Science Classroom.

ABSTRACT This article provides an overview of a classroom project, titled the Priorities Project, which is designed to promote responsible and informed civic engagement on the part of students in upper level political science courses at Drake University. It provides an overview of the Priorities Project, a brief summary highlighting the process and results of this project, and preliminary assessment data. The article discusses this classroom assignment in the context of more general pedagogical debates regarding the relative advantages of service-learning in comparison to traditional models of teaching and learning focused on knowledge acquisition. The Priorities Project demonstrates a pedagogy of civic engagement grounded in a participatory conception of citizenship that represents a “third way”—between a traditional, lecture-based classroom focused on the development of personally responsible citizens and a service-learning model emphasizing a justice-oriented conception of citizenship—of balancing the priorities of knowledge acquisition and civic responsibility in the undergraduate classroom.

Gender, sexual violence and justice in war-torn societies

Despite a growing awareness among scholars and policymakers of the role that gender plays in mobilising war crimes and human rights abuses and the need for attention to gender in the aftermath of violent conflicts, the international community has not yet paid sufficient attention to gender in the construction of mechanisms intended to promote justice in war-torn societies. Similarly, scholars have neglected gender as an explanatory concept in their analyses of efforts to promote ‘post-conflict justice’. In an effort to address this void, this paper examines the limitations of prevailing approaches to justice in war-torn societies due to their failure to adequately consider the role of gender norms as a constraint on participation in the dominant mechanisms for pursuing ‘post-conflict justice’. It also considers how mechanisms intended to promote justice in war-torn societies might be most appropriately constructed in an effort to bring justice to all victims of wartime violence.

The Limitations of Law as a Tool for Responding to Violence Against Women

In their article, Hudson, Bowen, and Nielsen (2011) argue that inequities in family law codify an evolutionary legacy of male control over female reproduction that correlates with increased rates of violence against women. Their general argument is comprised of three fundamental premises. First, the authors provide empirical evidence indicating a relationship between inequities in family law, defined as “state regulation of marriage, parenthood, dissolution of marriage, custody of children, and transmission of goods across generations” (454), and levels of physical violence against women in particular societies. Second, the authors anchor their general argument in a feminist evolutionary analytic approach (FEAA). They contend that evolutionary forces are an ultimate cause of patriarchy and violence against women, even as they acknowledge the importance of more proximate causes of specific forms of violence against women. According to the authors, an FEAA approach can help explain “persistent patterns of patriarchy throughout human history” (464) and “…tells us that there is a strong evolutionary component to violence, and that its origin is male-female conflict over reproduction, and that these influences will be mirrored in human systems of family law” (468). Finally, the authors draw upon the two previous premises to build the third and most critical premise of their argument. Because the authors believe that evidence showing a correlation between inequities in family law and levels of physical violence are ultimately rooted in evolutionary dynamics, they conclude that “[s]ocieties that persist in safeguarding inequitable family law are societies built upon evolutionary male reproductive strategies of structural control and higher levels of coercion of women by men” (470).

A reply to ‘The production of sexual mutilation among Muslim women in Cairo’, by Maria Frederika Malmström

This is a reply to:Malmstrom, Maria Frederika. 2013. “The production of sexual mutilation among Muslim women in Cairo.” Global Discourse. 3 (2): 306–321. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23269995.2013.804752

Lost in legation: the gap between rhetoric and reality in international human rights law governing women’s rights

ABSTRACTThis article weaves together insights from political science, human rights scholarship, feminist legal theory, and other critical perspectives to explore the limits of global legalism as a primary mechanism for promoting women’s rights. Specifically, it examines international human rights law governing women’s rights to consider the limitations of law as a mechanism for improving the status of women globally. Although its development has been prolific, formal international human rights law is characterized by a significant gap between aspirational rhetoric and the reality of limited implementation and enforcement. This gap between rhetoric and reality demonstrates the limitations of a universalistic legal framework as a mechanism for promoting significant gains for women’s equality and rights. The article investigates the limitations of international human rights law as a tool for promoting women’s rights through a close examination of human rights treaty systems, specifically the Convention on th...

Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (review)

The former director of the London School of Economics, Anthony Giddens, was fond of saying that there were two dull things to say about globalisation: the first that it meant everything, the second that it meant nothing. Saskia Sassen seems to agree. Her new book, Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, sets out to dispel the myths peddled by both sides of the increasingly fractious globalisation industry: that globalisation is a process which has torn asunder the very foundations of modernity, or that the term is no more than a mirage, smokescreen or chimera which has done little to disturb the rise and rise of the nation state. As with any attempt to produce a via media between two seemingly diametrically opposed and passionately held positions, Sassen is forced to navigate this terrain with great care. The result is a book which defies easy summary, something much to its credit. There is a great deal of guff spouted about globalisation, and Sassen cuts through the blather with due diligence and considerable erudition. This is a big topic and Sassen has produced a big book – both in size and in stature.