2010 CONSTITUTIONAL LAW CENTER SYMPOSIUM
“The Same-Sex Marriage Divide”
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Drake Law School
8:30 am – 12:30 pm
Cartwright 213

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Please click here to download a registration form. Registration forms are due by Monday, April 5, 2010.

Symposium Précis

In 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the state violated the Iowa Constitution's equality provision by prohibiting same-sex marriage. Iowa is the only "heartland" state to legalize same-sex marriage, and the decision has generated strong reaction. At this Symposium, an inter-disciplinary group of experts on same-sex marriage will debate various issues. These experts will discuss whether same-sex marriage should be legalized, the appropriate role for courts, the constitutionality of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, and the economics of same-sex marriage.

Presenters

Douglas Allen, Burnaby Mountain Professor, Department of Economics at Simon Fraser University

Professor Allen is the author of two popular undergraduate microeconomic theory textbooks, several other academic books, and over 60 articles. He generally studies how exchange and production takes place in the context of “positive transaction costs.” This has led him to study the family (marriage and divorce, child support guidelines, the life-cycle demand for sex, and same sex marriage), the farm (share contracts, lease markets, ownership of assets, and the survival of family run farm enterprises), and history (the purchase of military commissions, the success of the British Navy during the age of sail, homesteading, the Klondike gold rush, the practice of patronage in pre-modern times, and dueling with pistols). He has been teaching at Simon Fraser since 1990. He previously taught at Carleton University in Ottawa. He did his B.A. with Honors and his M.A. at Simon Fraser. He then completed his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Washington under the supervision of Yoram Barzel. He has been quoted by the media on numerous occasions and was listed as an expert witness in the California Proposition 8 trial. 
 
Lee Badgett, Director, Center for Public Policy & Administration; Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst 

 In addition to her position at the University of Massachusetts, Professor Badgett is the research director of the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA. She studies family policy issues and labor market discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, and gender. Her latest book, When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage (NYU Press, 2009), focuses on the U.S. and European experiences with marriage equality for gay couples. She co-edited of the recent book, Sexual Orientation Discrimination: An International Perspective (Routledge, 2007). Her first book, Money, Myths, and Change: The Economic Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men (University of Chicago Press, 2001), presented her work critiquing the idea of gay affluence. She is also the author or co-author of numerous journal articles and policy reports.

Professor Badgett’s policy-related work includes testifying as an expert witness in legislative matters and litigation, analyzing public policies, consulting with regulatory bodies, briefing policymakers, writing op-ed pieces, speaking with journalists, and advising businesses. Badgett received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California-Berkeley in 1990, and has a BA in economics from the University of Chicago (1982). She has also taught at Yale University and the University of Maryland. In 2008, Curve Magazine named her one of the twenty most powerful lesbians in academia. She is quoted regularly in newspapers across the country, including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post. 
 
Maggie Gallagher, President, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy

Maggie Gallagher is president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy (www.iMAPP.org), whose motto is "strengthening marriage for a new generation" and whose unique mission is research and public education on ways that law and public policy can strengthen marriage as a social institution.

Maggie is a nationally syndicated columnist, the author of three books on marriage (including most recently with University of Chicago Prof Linda Waite "The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better-Off Financially"), and a leading voice of the new marriage movement. National Journal named her to the 2004 list of the most influential people in the same-sex marriage debate.
 
She appears frequently on major TV and radio and is frequently asked to lecture at colleges, universities and law schools. She has testified as an expert witness on marriage before the U.S. Senate and in various state legislatures. Her writings on marriage have appeared in The New York Times, The Weekly Standard, and the Wall Street Journal, as well as scholarly journals such as the Louisiana Law Review, and the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics, and Public Policy.
Maggie is a graduate of Yale (class of ’82).

Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law and Professor Political Science at Northwestern University
 
Professor Koppelman’s scholarship focuses on issues at the intersection of law and political philosophy, including gay rights, antidiscrimination law, religious liberty, obscenity law, abortion, federalism, the regulation of recreational drugs, the theory of democracy, and the meaning of neutrality as a political ideal. He is the author of A Right to Discriminate? How the Case of Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale Warped the Law of Free Association (with Tobias Barrington Wolff, Yale University Press, 2009), Same Sex, Different States: When Same-Sex Marriages Cross State Lines (Yale University Press, 2006), The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law (University of Chicago Press, 2002), Antidiscrimination Law and Social Equality (Yale University Press, 1996), which won a Myers Center Award, and more than 50 articles in books and scholarly journals. He is also an occasional contributor to the Balkinization blog.

Before joining Northwestern, he taught politics at Princeton University from 1992 to 1997. He has held visiting professorships at the University of Texas and at the University of Chicago. He received an A.B. in Humanities from the University of Chicago and a J.D. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University. After law school, he was a law clerk for Chief Justice Ellen Ash Peters of the Connecticut Supreme Court. He was a fellow in the Program in Ethics and the Professions at Harvard University in 1994-95.

Mark P. Strasser, Trustees Professor of Law at Capital University Law School

Professor Strasser is nationally recognized for his scholarship in family law, bioethics, and constitutional law. His most recent books include On Same-Sex Marriages, Civil Unions, and the Rule of Law: Constitutional Interpretation at the Crossroads (Praeger Publishers/Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002), Marriage and Same-Sex Unions: A Debate (Praeger Publishers, 2003), co-edited with Lynn Wardle, David Coolidge and William Duncan and Questions and Answers: Family Law (LexisNexis, 2003). Professor Strasser frequently presents papers at conferences across the country and internationally.
 
Professor Strasser is a former professor of philosophy and taught at Illinois State University, University of Texas at Arlington, and Washington University in St. Louis. A member of Capital University Law School's faculty since 1993, Professor Strasser teaches Constitutional Law, Torts, Family Law, Jurisprudence, and a seminar on Sexual Diversity and the Law. Professor Strasser was the Visiting Tyler Haynes Chair Professor of Law at the University of Richmond School of Law in 2001 and a Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law during the 1999-2000 academic year.

Lynn D. Wardle, Bruce C. Hafen Professor of Law at J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University

Professor Wardle is a graduate of BYU (1971, cum laude) and Duke University Law School (1974, with distinction). He was a law clerk to U.S. District Judge John Sirica (1974-75, during the “Watergate” cover-up case). He has taught Family Law at the BYU Law School since 1978 and has been a visiting professor or lecturer at other law schools including Howard University School of Law, and at law faculties in Scotland, Japan, Australia and China. He is author of 9 books and more than 110 articles and chapters, most dealing with family law or biomedical law issues.

He is past President (2000-02), Secretary-General (1994-2000) and Executive Council member (1991-94, 2002-present) of the International Society of Family Law (the largest and most respected international scholarly association for family law); is a member of the American Law Institute; and serves on the Boards of Directors or Advisory Boards of national and international legal publications, and other professional and scholarly associations. Among his recent publications are “Alimony on the Margins: Protecting Homemaking Service in the Public Interest,” in Family Finances 475-490 (Jan Sramek Verlag, 2009), What’s the Harm? Does Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage Really Harm Individuals, Families or Society (Lynn D. Wardle, ed., 2008), and “In Praise of Loving: Reflections on the “Loving Analogy” for Same-Sex Marriage,” 51 How. L. J. 117-186 (2007) (with Lincoln C. Oliphant).