Same-sex policies examined

The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law and the J.
Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University are hosting a
series of law and policy debates on marriage, adoption and families
of same-sex couples today and Saturday.

Intended to help educate the public about gay and lesbian
couples, the symposium “Marriage Debates: 5 Law and Policy
Debates on Extending Marriage and Adoption to Same-Sex
Couples” is scheduled to host 18 speakers who will speak on
several issues regarding marriage, studies of gay and lesbian
parents, religion and education.

Same-sex marriages have been a topic of heated debate for some
time now, as a marriage amendment is expected to go to vote in both
the Senate and House of Representatives this summer. The amendment
would legally define marriages as between an man and woman.

Lynn Wardle, a professor and director of the Marriage and Family
Law Research Grant at Clark Law School, said the conference would
help bring the issues of same-sex marriage to the public in a
balanced manner that would allow the public to create its own
opinions from the arguments presented.

“It is one of the rare academic conferences that is
completely balanced,” Wardle said.

Of the 18 presenters, half were chosen by the Williams Institute
on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, and half were chosen
by the Clark Law School.

By having each side of the debate have an equal number of
presenters, the debate would overcome the bias of other typically
academic conferences, which may have a disproportionate number of
speakers from one side or the other, he said.

Academics will also present papers that will be published in the
UCLA Williams Institute Law Journal.

By making their arguments available in print, they expect to
expand the number of people able to learn about the arguments
presented.

“Not only will the conference benefit the people who can
be there, it will enrich the literature regarding these
issues,” Wardle said.

He said that another compelling reason to attend the conference
is the current applicability of the issues to life in California.
Last year, a San Francisco Superior Court judge found
California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, while
a gay couple who tried to marry in Orange County last year recently
appealed a U.S. District Court judge’s ruling to uphold the
state ban on same-sex marriage.

Three years ago, the Williams Institute and Clark Law School
collaborated on hosting a same-sex marriage symposium, and this
year they decided to host an even larger debate to further inform
the public and academia.

Brad Sears, executive director of the Williams Institute, said
this year’s conference aims to facilitate deeper discussion
than the one they previously hosted.

One pitfall many conferences fall into involves debating on the
same issues back and forth without presenting novel evidence and
arguments that delve deeper into the subject, Sears said.

“We’re really going to dig into the issues instead
of shooting platitudes back and forth,” he said.

The symposium will focus on analyzing the data and presenting
how different viewpoints and backgrounds can lead researchers to
different results even though they used the same data and
evidence.

By centering each speaker’s talk to a particular aspect of
same-sex marriage, adoption and family, the symposium will keep
discussion of the issues focused so that they do not degenerate to
generalized moralizing and reasoning.

Sears said the tightened discussion of the topics would then be
much more conducive to helping attendees understand the viewpoints
of both sides.

“Having the debates at UCLA will help clear up the
confusion many people have about same-sex marriage,” said
Debbie Lee, a fourth-year history student.

She said that though same-sex relationships are presented and
brought up in the news, most have a superficial understanding of
the issues surrounding the subject.

“Much hurt results from people not knowing everything they
should,” Lee said.

With reports from Bruin wire services.