Historically, critics of interracial, interfaith, and most recently same-sex marriage have invoked conscience and religious liberty to defend their objections, and often they have been accused of bigotry. Although denouncing and preventing bigotry is a shared political value with a long history, people disagree over who is a bigot and what makes a belief, attitude, or action bigoted. This is evident from the rejoinder that calling out bigotry is intolerant political correctness, even bigotry itself. In Who's the Bigot?, the eminent legal scholar Linda C. McClain traces the rhetoric of bigotry and conscience across a range of debates relating to marriage and antidiscrimination law. Is "bigotry" simply the term society gives to repudiated beliefs that now are beyond the pale? She argues that the differing views people hold about bigotry reflect competing understandings of what it means to be "on the wrong side of history" and the ways present forms of discrimination resemble or differ from past forms. Furthermore, McClain shows that bigotry has both a backward- and forward-looking dimension. We not only learn the meaning of bigotry by looking to the past, but we also use examples of bigotry, on which there is now consensus, as the basis for making new judgments about what does or does not constitute bigotry and coming to new understandings of both injustice and justice. By examining charges of bigotry and defenses based on conscience and religious belief in these debates, Who's the Bigot? makes a novel and timely contribution to our understanding of the relationship between religious liberty and discrimination in American life.

Who's the Bigot?: Learning from Conflicts over Marriage and Civil Rights Law

McClain, Linda C.

Administrative Law

Oxford University Press

In this bold new book, Linda McClain offers a liberal and feminist theory of the relationships between family life and politics--a topic dominated by conservative thinkers. McClain agrees that stable family lives are vital to forming persons into capable, responsible, self-governing citizens. But what are the public values at stake when we think about families, and what sorts of families should government recognize and promote?
Arguing that family life helps create the virtues and character required for citizenship, McClain shows that the connection between family self-government and democratic self-government does not require the deep-laid gender inequality that has historically accompanied it. Examining controversial issues in family law and policy--among them, the governmental promotion of heterosexual marriage and the denial of marriage to same-sex couples, the regulation of family life through welfare policy, and constitutional rights to reproductive freedom--McClain argues for a political theory of the family that embraces equality, defends rights as facilitating responsibility, and supports families in ways that respect men's and women's capacities for self-government.

The Place of Families: Fostering Capacity, Equality, and Responsibility

Parenting & Relationships

Harvard University Press

Many have argued in recent years that the U.S. constitutional system exalts individual rights over responsibilities, virtues, and the common good. Answering the charges against liberal theories of rights, James Fleming and Linda McClain develop and defend a civic liberalism that takes responsibilities and virtues―as well as rights―seriously. They provide an account of ordered liberty that protects basic liberties stringently, but not absolutely, and permits government to encourage responsibility and inculcate civic virtues without sacrificing personal autonomy to collective determination.
The battle over same-sex marriage is one of many current controversies the authors use to defend their understanding of the relationship among rights, responsibilities, and virtues. Against accusations that same-sex marriage severs the rights of marriage from responsible sexuality, procreation, and parenthood, they argue that same-sex couples seek the same rights, responsibilities, and goods of civil marriage that opposite-sex couples pursue. Securing their right to marry respects individual autonomy while also promoting moral goods and virtues. Other issues to which they apply their idea of civic liberalism include reproductive freedom, the proper roles and regulation of civil society and the family, the education of children, and clashes between First Amendment freedoms (of association and religion) and antidiscrimination law. Articulating common ground between liberalism and its critics, Fleming and McClain develop an account of responsibilities and virtues that appreciates the value of diversity in our morally pluralistic constitutional democracy.

Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Virtues

Politics & Social Sciences

Fleming, James E.

Philosophy

In the fourth edition, all 17 chapters are fully updated to reflect the latest family law developments. Developments based on Obergefell v. Hodges are treated fully throughout the new edition. This popular family law casebook engages students with the significant changes to the American family and the corresponding evolution of family law doctrine and policy. The book emphasizes that contemporary families take a variety of forms, including marital and nonmarital relationships, and that constitutional considerations play an increasingly important role in family law. The fourth edition preserves and builds on the approach of the earlier editions: presenting core substantive family law doctrine while also exploring ongoing and emerging policy debates and discussing the importance of cross-disciplinary collaborations with experts in fields such as psychology and accounting. The book introduces the myriad issues central to family law practice and to a lawyer’s ethical and professional responsibilities. New cases have been substituted where appropriate, and the notes following each lead case, statute or article have been thoroughly updated. In addition, new Problems expand the number of opportunities for actively engaging students. Contemporary Family Law highlights the issues of professional and ethical responsibility that arise in family law, not only by using Problems that invite students to engage in role playing, but also by devoting separate chapters to legal ethics, alternative dispute resolution, and private ordering. While providing a grounding in the historical and contemporary regulation of marriage, the book also devotes chapters to nonmarital couples and to establishing parenthood. The book also emphasizes concrete aspects of legal practice and professional responsibility by, for example, including material at the end of the first chapter on shifting paradigms within family law practice and the roles of family lawyers, by addressing jurisdictional issues in one integrated chapter, and by presenting problems for discussion in each chapter that enable students to apply doctrine in real-life settings that lawyers face. Moreover, because child custody arrangements lead to some of the most acrimonious family disputes, this casebook devotes two chapters to custody: the first treats the initial custody decision, and the second explores continuing litigation concerning visitation, custody, and key childrearing decisions after the initial disposition, including disputes involving third parties such as cohabitants and grandparents. Both custody chapters include disputes involving nonmarital children. New and expanded material in the fourth edition includes full treatment of Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the Supreme Court’s ruling on the fundamental right of same-sex couples to marry and to have every state recognize their marriage, and its ramifications throughout family law. This edition has added a separate chapter on nonmarital couples, including a section on domestic partnerships, civil unions, and other legal statuses in the wake of Obergefell; extensive coverage of debt and family finances, reflecting the current economic climate, as well as new material on how taxes affect families; substantially updated discussion of the impact of gender in child custody decisions and the current legal status of shared parenting; an expanded Section on the Hague Convention; detailed discussion of new and emerging reproductive technologies; and major revisions to the chapter on child support (including recent data on the central role of child support in low-income families). The chapter on private ordering integrates the new Uniform Premarital and Marital Agreements Act. Finally, the comprehensive 700-page teachers manual presents explanations and pedagogical strategies, including extended exercises, that will help new adopters design a rich course that meets their students’ needs and aspirations. For professors who have already used the book, the manual provides support on how to integrate new material into their existing lectures. The co-authors will share their Power Point slides with professors who adopt the book.

Contemporary Family Law, 4th (American Casebook Series)

Abrams, Douglas E.

Cahn, Naomi R.

Ross, Catherine J.

Meyer, David D.

Family Law

West Academic Publishing

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