"Homophobia just ain't what it used to be"

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

What might motivate the People's Republic of China (PRC) to recognize same-sex marriage and what has spurred Taiwan's Constitutional Court to instruct the Taiwan parliament to legalize same-sex marriage? This chapter traces the emergence of advocacy for marriage equality in the context of two different and evolving political systems. Taiwan looks set to become the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage as the result of an active LGBT movement, multiparty strategizing and government efforts to differentiate Taiwan from China in international arenas. But the exact nature of such legislation may be influenced by public protest against marriage equality on the grounds that it will undermine religious and traditional Chinese family values. While domestic pressure for marriage equality is a more recent and restrained phenomenon in China, the rise of the PRC as a global superpower and the current administration's emphasis on promoting " Chinese " and core socialist values may eventually enable the recognition of same-sex marriage equality by government fiat.

RESISTING, 2012

Political Research Associates (PRA) is a progressive think tank devoted to supporting movements that are building a more just and inclusive democratic society. We expose movements, institutions, and ideologies that undermine human rights.

Journal of Homosexuality., 2016

In his 2006 article in the Journal of the Islamic Medical Association of North America (JIMA), Dr. Ahmed qualified the predominant psychiatric view on " homosexuality " by recourse to opinions prevalent within reparative therapy circles. Conservative Muslim thinkers, online counselors and other professionals continue to hold opinions similar to those delineated by Dr. Ahmed in his journal article. We use his paper as a focal point to critique the general opinions upheld by conservative Muslim thinkers by alluding to the harms associated with reparative therapy and by rejecting the unreasonable prescription of permanent celibacy. We critique Dr. Ahmed's association of " homosexuality " with mental health issues, fatal diseases, alcoholism and illicit sexual intercourse. Investigating the Muslim tradition, we encourage conservative Muslim leaders to facilitate Muslim gays and lesbians in their legitimate human need for intimacy, affection and companionship.

This chapter looks at the lack of explicit public policies relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in the People's Republic of China (PRC), and recent events and activist efforts that highlight or challenge that omission. Although the term LGBT does not specify the full range of sexual and gender non-conforming people, it is used in this chapter as a short-hand to represent all sexual and gender minorities, in part because other possible terms such as 'queer' also reference western academic theories, and do not have the same significance in China. The term 'PRC' is used to refer to post-1949 mainland China. The chapter does not examine the evolution of LGBT-related policies in Hong Kong and Macau, which have different histories of social organization and LGBT activism (Engebretson,

This paper has two aims. The first aim is to provide some global context to the same-sex marriage debate in the United States by highlighting how homosexuality, homophobia, and marriage have interacted in some of the world’s religions, laws, and societies across time. The second aim is to advance the argument that the distinct nature of American separationism should be more directly considered by claimants and the judges and justices hearing their claims – that is, to prove that same-sex marriage prohibitions violate the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Neither homophobia nor the case of extending civil marriage to include same-sex couples is a uniquely American phenomenon. When the United States fully decriminalized sodomy through the Supreme Court’s Lawrence decision in 2003, it departed from the substantial number of countries (seventy-eight) that still prohibit homosexual acts. And as U.S. jurisdictions, one-by-one, have extended civil marriage to same-sex couples, they have joined the small but increasing number of jurisdictions to extend marriage rights to sexual minorities. Were the Supreme Court to conclude that same-sex marriage bans are unconstitutional, the United States would be the twelfth country to legalize gay marriage. Or, perhaps it will be the fourteenth. On January 25, 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron’s government introduced a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. Britain’s Parliament will debate the bill beginning in February, and the bill is expected to become law by midsummer. On February 3, France approved a gay marriage bill for debate, and on February 12, the National Assembly (the lower house) passed the bill, which will be next be debated in the Senate, where it is expected to pass. After evaluating the ideal and reality of American exceptionalism, Establishment Clause jurisprudence, and the social reality of the gay marriage debate, I conclude that because same-sex marriage bans impermissibly establish religion, the failure of the advocates for marriage equality and courts to consider this element of the debate as a matter of constitutional law is intriguing, if not perplexing. If American separationism is to mean what it purports to, either as a matter of original intent, Supreme Court jurisprudence, or American political morality, same-sex marriage prohibitions should be acknowledged and invalidated for their religious imprint.