Obergefell and Beyond: Religious Liberty in the Age of Pluralism
Prof. Frederick M. Gedicks (Brigham Young University)
9 dicembre 2015, ore 10
Sala consiliare (quarto piano) – Plesso Mattioli – via Mattioli 10, Siena
Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) is one of the most consequential and controversial decisions of the United States Supreme Court (USSCt) in the last 50 years. By holding that the U.S. 14th Amendment guarantees gays and lesbians access to civil marriage, Obergefell raised anew the persistent question of “judicial activism” and normalized a relationship that theologically conservative religions have long rejected as contrary to God’s will, the “natural” procreative order, and millennia of social history. The United States must now decide whether and to what extent conservative religion must accommodate itself to the new legal reality of same-sex marriage.
This lecture will defend the constitutional reasoning of Obergefell as within the Anglo-American tradition of constitutional “due process,” and discuss the plausibility of claims that the constitutional recognition of same-sex marriage threatens religious liberty in the United States.
Frederick Mark Gedicks is Guy Anderson Chair and Professor of Law at Brigham Young University Law School in Provo, Utah, USA. He teaches jurisprudence, freedom of religion and constitutional law and writes on freedom of religion and constitutional interpretation. Further details at http://www.law2.byu.edu/faculty/profile_fancy.php?id=16