Jared Chamberlain

How Religious Characteristics Are Related to Attitudes toward GLB Individuals and GLB Rights

Two studies conducted in the United States investigated whether individuals’ religious characteristics (e.g., orthodoxy, evangelism, literal interpretism, quest, extrinsic religiosity) affect their attitudes toward gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) individuals and GLB rights (marriage, adoption, sexual behavior). Orthodoxy, literal interpretism, evangelism, and extrinsic religiosity were all related to less support for GLB rights and less positive attitudes toward GLB individuals. Quest was not related to any measure. Results highlight the complexity of attitudes; for instance, a religious characteristic might predict attitude toward one right, but might not predict attitudes toward other rights. Findings further show what is known about how religious characteristics relate to support for GLB individuals and GLB rights.

The Rights and Responsibilities of Gay Social Parents and the Potential Implications for Children's Well-Being

As more gay couples become parents, there is a greater likelihood that some of these parents will face unique legal consequences if their relationships dissolve. In these cases, judges must determine whether social parents possess legal parental rights and responsibilities. A mixed-methods approach was adopted to assess judges’ rulings and justifications in 43 parental status cases involving gay disputants. The results verified a typology of five overarching legal themes, or rationales, that judges relied on in their decisions. The data also reveal that nearly half of the rulings in the sample were against conferring parental rights or responsibilities to social parents. These trends in judicial rulings call attention to potential adverse consequences for childrens well-being, as prior research has linked disruptions in parent-child relationships to negative psychosocial outcomes. Implications for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) research, policy, and the family legal system are discussed.

“There Ought to Be a Law!”: Understanding Community Sentiment

Whether it is the results of a national poll, a public demonstration, a Facebook post, or an op-ed article in the newspaper, it is difficult to go through a day and not be exposed to some form of community sentiment. At the very basic level, sentiment is one’s attitude toward or opinion about some attitude object, whether it is sentiment toward the president’s performance, whether laws should be enacted to restrict guns, or what should be included in school curriculum. Most people have opinions about a wide variety of issues, people, and things in their environment. Although the concept of community sentiment is very broad, this book is an attempt at consolidating knowledge about sentiment into one place. To narrow the focus of the book, we have chosen to focus on community sentiment toward laws and policies that affect children and families. The book first tackles some basic issues in this introduction chapter: What is a community? What is sentiment, how is it measured, and what influences it? Does—and should—sentiment affect laws and policies? After this introductory chapter, several chapters discuss how sentiment is measured and how it can change. Next, the book offers perspectives on how legal actions that conform with sentiment promote positive and negative perceptions of justice. Other chapters discuss how laws that have received positive sentiment can sometimes have negative and unintended outcomes. The book closes with a summary of the common themes and directions for future research in community sentiment.

Community Sentiment and the Law: Concluding Thoughts and Future Directions

The belief that individuals have little impact on political processes and outcomes seems to be increasingly common in recent years. Indeed, external efficacy in the political system, which taps into the belief that one has a say in government decisions, has sharply declined over the past 50 years in the USA, with the lowest amounts occurring in 1990, 1994, and 2008, (www.electionstudies.org; see Chamberlain, 2013). A recent analysis indicates that these declines have occurred across different political cultures, suggesting a universal shift toward lower external efficacy (Chamberlain, 2013). While it may be easy to identify cases in which one is not heard by governmental officials (e.g., an elected official not voting according to the will of their constituency), there are numerous avenues through which individuals and collectives can impact the political landscape. Serving as a juror is one way in which members of the community can impact legal outcomes in both civil and criminal cases. Individuals can also impact local law and policy voting on referenda, whether they are related to fiscal (e.g., tax increases) or social (e.g., affirmative action) issues. Individuals can also vote for local and national candidates who best represent (and theoretically act on) their interests and values. Empirical (e.g., Oldmixon & Calfano, 2007) and anecdotal (e.g., Supreme Court opinions in Weems v. U.S., 1910 and Furman v. Georgia, 1972) evidence suggests that community sentiment does impact the law through these various avenues, albeit in sometimes indirect and imperfect ways (see Chaps. 1, 2, and 3, this volume, for discussions). Thus, in spite of dropping confidence in one’s ability to impact the legal system, evidence suggests that there are various channels through which community sentiment does impact the law.

Methods and Measures Used in Gauging Community Sentiment

Building on Chap. 2, this chapter establishes the nexus between community sentiment and the law and details the various ways in which community sentiment impacts law and policy. The general paradigms (e.g., analyses of jury decisions data and public opinion polls) used to capture community sentiment are then outlined and critiqued. Because impressions of community sentiment impact law and policy decisions, it is important that the samples drawn are representative of a community and the tools used to measure it are valid. Thus, this chapter highlights some of the complexities of accurately capturing community sentiment and provides a review of some sampling and measurement concerns in gauging community sentiment. Finally, recommendations are made to help avoid common measurement pitfalls.

Same-Sex Parents’ Sentiment About Parenthood and the Law: Implications for Therapeutic Outcomes

As same-sex parents begin to adopt/conceive children more frequently, the legal system must determine the parental rights and responsibilities of parents who separate. In order to inform judges and legislators’ decisions, this research investigated same-sex parents’ sentiment about their roles and responsibilities as well as their experiences (as parents) with law and society. Quantitative and qualitative analyses suggested that same-sex parents assumed high amounts of parental responsibility, demonstrated strong parent–child bonds, and took on fundamental roles in their children’s lives. Many parents reported that they (or their partner) could not establish legal rights, leading to negative physical and emotional outcomes. Implications for therapeutic outcomes are discussed.