Campus conference to examine same-sex marriage

A national debate is swirling around same-sex marriage, with new developments making front-page news almost daily.

To help the public sort through the legal, moral and political issues, BGSU will host a conference on the topic from 2-6:15 p.m. Friday (April 15) in 308 Bowen-Thompson Student Union. A panel of experts, comprising both supporters and opponents, will discuss some of the central questions raised by same-sex marriage.

Public opinion is deeply divided on the controversial issue, said Nicolas Maloberti, program manager for the Social Philosophy and Policy Center. Judges in Massachusetts and, most recently, in California ruled that legislative bans are unconstitutional because they discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. In the last election, citizens in 13 states voted to amend their constitutions to ban same-sex marriage. On the cultural front, some religious denominations have mobilized against marriage between same-sex partners, arguing that such unions violate fundamental biblical tenets, while other churches have sanctified gay marriages. The legal implications of some states permitting gay marriage and other states refusing to recognize these unions are tangled.

The BGSU conference will bring together four experts from law, sociology, political science and economics. Participating will be:
• Dr. Andrew Koppelman, a constitutional scholar and a professor of law and political science at Northwestern University. He has written extensively on gay rights issues in contemporary American law.
• Katherine Spaht, the Jules F. and Frances L. Landry Professor of Law at Louisiana State University. She has worked with the state legislature to draft Louisiana’s covenant marriage legislation and has written on the role of law in the regulation of marriage.
• Judith Stacey, a professor of sociology at New York University. She writes on gay and lesbian family relationships.
• Jennifer Roback Morse, an economist and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She has both philosophical and policy interests in the role of the family in a free society.

For more information, contact Nicolas Maloberti at 2-2536 or nmalobe@bgnet.bgsu.edu. Further details can also be found at www.bgsu.edu/organizations/cfdr/same_sex_marriage/index.htm

The conference is sponsored by the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, the Department of Sociology, the Center for Family and Demographic Research, the Sociology Graduate Student Association and the College of Arts and Sciences.