Gender & Sexuality Law Blog

Unless you were living in a cave you should be aware that a week ago Tuesday the people of Maine decided to pass on marriage rights for same-sex couples.  Commentators described it as not only “a harsh blow to the gay marriage drive,” but “a major set back to gay rights,” and “a tremendous and [...]

The relative silence of a queer – or even a gay – voice in the health care reform debate of the last six months is confounding.  As someone who spent my 20’s and 30’s dealing with close friends and colleagues dying of AIDS, who watched many people become impoverished by their disease, and saw first [...]

Last night at the Human Rights Campaign dinner President Barack Obama delivered his first big speech on lgbt issues since becoming President.   There was much anticipation for the speech, as some in the gay community feel that the President has not moved fast enough on the issues affecting our community.
What is “an LGBT Issue”?
But what [...]

Both during and after the City Bar Association panel I participated in a few weeks ago on the future of same sex marriage, I’ve gotten some push back for suggesting that we consider and evaluate the merits and risks of various constitutional arguments that have been made in the cases challenging the exclusion of same [...]

We learned late last week that David Souter plans to step down from the Supreme Court at the end of this term. Nominated by President George H. W. Bush in July of 1990 on the expectation that he would be a dependable conservative vote on the Court, Justice Souter has instead marked his time [...]

Columbia Law School’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic can boast another victory – this time on behalf of a gay parolee in Massachusetts.  The Massachusetts Parole Board agreed last week to give Bruce Wilborn, an openly gay inmate, a new parole hearing to settle the sexual orientation discrimination charges he brought against the board more [...]

I returned today from 10 days in Morocco to learn with great sadness of Eve Sedgwick’s passing.   In an odd way, it was fitting that I was in North Africa during her last days – for there are few places in the world in which one can experience the celebration of homosociality more than one [...]