Ireland is the first country in the world to extend civil marriage to same sex couples through a public vote. The marriage equality referendum saw record numbers turn out to register their votes including Irish emigrants who returned from around the world to ensure an impressive majority in favour of this constitutional amendment. The overwhelming positive result marked a clear separation of church and State for possibly the first time in Ireland. The Yes Equality campaign ignited a social revolution across Ireland, witnessed more recently with further referenda decriminalising abortion and introducing a less punitive regime for obtaining a divorce. Utilising published reports, newspaper articles, marriage equality papers and extracts from Dail debates, this book traces the key legislative and social changes surrounding Irish marriage equality, from the establishment of the advocacy group in 2008 to the referendum on the extension of civil marriage rights to same-sex couples in Ireland in 2015. With a foreword by Ivana Bacik, a Senator and Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penology at Trinity College Dublin, best known for her tireless work defending human rights, this book offers a concise historical record of the momentous referendum on marriage equality. -- .

THE FREEHOF INSTITUTE OF PROGRESSIVE HALAKHAH The Freehof Institute of Progressive Halakhah is a creative research center devoted to studying and defining the progressive character of the halakhah in accordance with the principles and theology of Reform Judaism. It seeks to establish the ideological basis of Progressive halakhah, and its application to daily life. The Institute fosters serious studies, and helps scholars in various portions of the world to work together for a common cause. It provides an ongoing forum through symposia, and publications including the quarterly newsletter, HalakhaH, published under the editorship of Walter Jacob, in the United States. The foremost halakhic scholars in the Reform, Liberal, and Progressive rabbinate along with some Conservative and Orthodox colleagues as well as university professors serve on our Academic Council.

Over the past decade, the European Union and national policy-makers alike have paid more attention to childhood poverty and children's rights. Whether this has led to better policies, and whether these policies have in turn resulted in less childhood poverty and more human dignity, remains debatable. Children's rights may provide some common ground for the different perspectives on the causes of poverty. They also introduce specific process requirements, in particular the participation of the poor. At the same time, children's rights may gain from an encounter with child poverty studies, not least in grasping the complexity of child poverty and in making a realistic assessment of their own potential for addressing child poverty. This book introduces several approaches in the field of child poverty and children's rights studies, and identifies intersections between different theoretical approaches from both domains. It is a collaborative project of Centrum OASeS and the UNICEF Chair in Children's Rights, both located at the University of Antwerp. The Chair, established in 2007, acts as a knowledge broker of children's rights within the academic community and between the academic community and policy and practice, through teaching, research, and service to the community. The research topics of the Centrum OASeS include poverty and other forms of social exclusion, ethnic minorities, urban policy, social economy and supported employment, and social networks.

A Harvard-educated physician returned home one day to find a note from his wife stating she had moved out and taken the children with her. The marriage was over, but he hoped he would remain a vital part of his children's lives.
His wife had other plans.
This is the story of a once-happy family now torn apart by divorce - its dignity shredded in a family court system that sees mothers as the only proper guardians for their children, even in the overwhelming majority of cases not involving abusive or threatening husbands. Written from the divorced father's point of view, this book exposes our twisted legal system, its obvious abuses of civil rights, and indifferent courts that subject caring fathers across the nation to vengeful ex-wives, opportunistic psychologists and psychiatrists, and overzealous attorneys.
Author Robert Mendelson argues that all fathers should not be viewed as deadbeat dads who shirk their responsibilities. Public opinion, the press, and the courts are wrong to think that men cannot be single parents. A Family Divided alerts divorcing fathers to the hidden minefields and pitfalls of custody proceedings, offers practical recommendations for reform, and sheds light on the real cause of fatherlessness in America today.

Marital rape stands at the intersection of the socio-legal issues arising from both domestic violence and sexual assault. For centuries, women who suffered sexual assault perpetrated by their spouses had no legal recourse. A man's conjugal rights included his right to have sexual intercourse with his wife regardless of whether she consented. This right has been recognised in law, and still is in some jurisdictions today. This book emerges from the research undertaken by an innovative, multi-country, academic, collaborative project dedicated to comparatively analysing the legal treatment of sexual assault in intimate relationships, with a view to challenging the legal impunity for and inadequate legal responses to this form of gendered violence.

The Family, Law and Society series brings together, in a five volume collection, the most significant articles and papers in key aspects of family law from an international perspective. Over the past two decades virtually all areas of family law have undergone major doctrinal and theoretical changes - from the definition of marriage and the financial and parenting consequences of divorce, to the legal construction of parenthood. An equally important set of changes has transformed the resolution of family disputes. Inter-disciplinary in its approach, this series not only draws together key law texts, but also scholarly articles from the fields of sociology, social administration, politics, and psychology. Taken together, these five volumes provide an invaluable resource to students and scholars around the world interested in all aspects of family law.

Human rights tend to focus on the relationship between the individual and the state the individual is the rights-holder, the state is the duty-holder. Children's rights bring a third player much more into the picture, namely the parents. Although, legally speaking, they are not duty-holders under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, parents do have a number of responsibilities under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights instruments. Child rearing may still be considered by many to be within the private domain, i.e. a matter of concern only within the relationship between children and their parents, with the exception of instances of child abuse or neglect. However, States may be obligated to turn parental responsibilities into national legal duties if this is needed to improve the legal and social position of children. In this volume, child-rearing responsibilities are examined in the light of children's rights and other human rights. All the contributions focus in particular on the proposal to introduce an upbringing (or parenting) pledge. The upbringing pledge contains not only a statement of lasting commitment towards the child, but also an explicit declaration of commitment to respect and promote the rights of the child both as a person and as a human being who is utterly dependent upon parents for wellbeing and the development of his or her personality. By means of the upbringing pledge as a child rights-based social institution, the responsibilities of society and the state towards both parents and children are re-affirmed as well.

An intriguing insight into the politics of gender, family and religion in Elizabethan England. The marriage of Charles and Elizabeth Forth (c. 1582-1593) offers an intriguing insight into the politics of gender, family and religion in Elizabethan England. In this story, resourceful women play leading roles, sometimes circumventing or subverting patriarchal authority, qualifying our accepted image of the Elizabethan propertied family. Elizabeth's impoverished Catholic father took no part in making her marriage. Instead, Elizabeth and her mother seemingly enticed Charles, sixteen-year-old heir of a solidly Protestant Suffolk JP, into a clandestine match. When the marriage began to fail, Elizabeth turned to her mother and sisters as her principal sources of support and showed greater guile, determination and resilience than her husband in what became a protracted contest. Charles, convinced of his wife's infidelity, finally left England to travel as a voluntary exile, only to die abroad. Elizabeth and her kinsman Henry Jerningham emerged as victors in subsequent prolonged litigation with Charles's father. Drawing on extensive testimony and decrees in the most fully recorded case of its kind heard by the Court of Requests, as well as a wide range of other material from local record offices and the National Archives, this readable micro-history unravels the tangled story of two very different young people. It establishes the background of the marriage and its failure in the contrasting histories of the families involved and sets the story in its larger political and religious contexts. Anyone with an interest in Elizabethan politics, law and religion, or the family, women and gender, will find it fascinating. RALPH HOULBROOKE is Professor Emeritus at the University of Reading.

This volume provides an authoritative, evenhanded overview of the Trump administration's family separation and child detention policies at the U.S.-Mexico border-and the impact of those policies and actions on children, their parents, border security, and U.S. politics. The 21st Century Turning Points series is a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today. Each volume provides readers with a clear, authoritative, and unbiased understanding of a single issue or event that is driving national debate about our nation's leaders, institutions, values, and priorities. This particular volume is devoted to the issue of child migrant detention on the U.S.-Mexico border. It provides background information on the political, social, and economic forces driving undocumented immigration into America; explains the policies and records of both the Obama and Trump administrations on immigration, deportation, and border security; summarizes current laws and regulations governing U.S. border and immigration policies; recounts President Trump's rhetoric and record on both legal and "illegal" immigration, including his promise to build a "Border Wall" with funds from Mexico; surveys living conditions in the border detention centers operated by U.S. authorities; and discusses the impact of detention and family separation on children taken into custody. Entries devoted to specific events and milestones Biographical profiles of important activists and figures Essays that explore the lasting impact of child detention on migrant children, their families, immigration trends, and American politics and society Annotated bibliography of sources for further study

In November 1998, the Hawaii and Alaska electorates voted to amend their state constitutions so that same-sex marriages would not have to be recognized. Rather than end the controversy surrounding same-sex marriages, the passage of these amendments will only spur more litigation, because the referenda themselves implicate constitutional guarantees and because amending a state constitution cannot lessen federal constitutional protections. Since same-sex marriages promote many of the same individual and state interests that opposite-sex marriages do, states will be unable to justify their same-sex marriage bans if those rationales are closely examined. When challenged, the recent constitutional amendments in Hawaii and Alaska may well be held unconstitutional by the state supreme courts on federal constitutional grounds, although ultimately the United States Supreme Court will likely be asked to resolve the relevant issues.

Suppose that state same-sex marriage bans are held not to violate federal constitutional guarantees, but that one state nonetheless recognizes such unions. The other states will be permitted to refuse to recognize marriages celebrated in that state only if certain conditions have been met. Contrary view notwithstanding, the law of nature exception will not apply in this case. Further, even the Defense of Marriage Act will likely not afford states the right to refuse to recognize any and all same-sex marriages validly celebrated in sister states.

On November 20, 1989, the United Nations unanimously adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Therefore, November 20 has become a date which signals the recognition by the international community that children have developmental and autonomy rights as essential benchmarks for children themselves and for those responsible for their well-being and healthy development. However, as long as society, through international cooperation, lacks serious investment in child development, the rights of all children especially the rights of young children and children living in exceptionally difficult conditions are soft rights only. The emancipation of the young child and the rehabilitation and emancipation of those who are deprived, exploited, abused, and neglected remain in a legal shadowland. This book explores this legal shadowland, introducing the concepts of the 'Trias pedagogica' and 'Transism, ' in order to shed light on the obligations and responsibilities of states and other actors in the empowerment of children, caregivers, and communities.

Recently, many political voices have indicated a strong desire to track down absent fathers who have absconded without fulfilling child support obligations to their biological or adopted children. This renewed interest in deadbeat dads has resulted from a recognition that the social welfare programs, which pick up the tab for abandoned children, are contributing significantly to an ever-increasing federal budget deficit. Meanwhile, in a large number of cases, there simply isn't enough money for an absent parent to maintain his own separate support and fulfill the support obligations that the law requires. This book explores the history, reforms, and consequences of child support in America. The authors have included case studies as well as discussions on the psychological consequences of separating families, effects of divorce laws on the award of child support, contested paternity, and child custody alternatives. They conclude with a discussion on economic responsibility and the deadbeat epidemic. The book is intended to empower the larger number of parents who are caught in the midst of overworked agencies, discouraging tales, and the lack of information that keeps them paralyzed from acting on their own behalf.

Explore legal issues that often hinder the work of child welfare practitioners! Child Welfare in the Legal Setting: A Critical and Interpretive Perspective is a revolutionary study of the child welfare system that is essential for practitioners, educators, and students interested in public child welfare work. It examines the legal system surrounding child welfare workers and highlights their need for agency-specific training. This insightful book challenges the traditional rules of child welfare and paves the way for alternate methods of conceptualizing and organizing child protection. It explores why many family interventions fail and others never even occur. By identifying incongruities between the philosophy of child welfare and its function, this book advocates a more individualistic and efficient technique for assisting clients. Addressing issues and challenges from the initial identification of problems to navigating the legal system, this book is also thorough enough for public child welfare workers who want to take their skills to the next level. The large-system perspective in this book uses the concentric circle model, the rational legal model of legal and court action, and the ritualized process model to examine child welfare practice. Learn why terms such as child abuse and neglect have become social constructions that vary depending on the values of social workers, judges, attorneys, agencies, and communities. Child Welfare in the Legal Setting: A Critical and Interpretive Perspective examines the standardization of the organizational activities of child welfare systems and how this limits professionals' ability to accurately recognize unique problems and intervene in the most beneficial manner. Child Welfare in the Legal Setting also provides controversial opinions on emerging issues including: family investigations sanction for Child Protective Services intervention the legal setting as a host environment the function of the child welfare system rationalization of child welfare intervention trained incapacity of social workers Title IVE programs the court system Child Welfare in the Legal Setting: A Critical and Interpretive Perspective identifies vital issues by analyzing the ethical and moral foundations of the child welfare system. This insightful book also takes a close look at how practitioners inadvertently devalue their clients by using language that creates stigmatized social categories such as victim and convicted felon. Supervisors, managers, social workers and child welfare practitioners will benefit from this information. The vignettes that supplement the narrative also make the book an important resource in any child welfare course.

This book examines the law in relation to how it has responded to sexual and gender issues in the context of Hong Kong, and addresses the implications of those responses for the global context. It aims to develop a localized theory of justice which enables the analysis of multiple socio-legal issues arising in Hong Kong, a predominantly Han-Chinese society in Greater China, while also offering formulations for corresponding solutions. Unlike other books on Hong Kong jurisprudence and socio-legal studies, this book not only compares and contrasts different theories of justice, but also attempts to generate a philosophical perspective which can synchronize and re-organize a range of theoretical components via the lens of localization. The author investigates theories of justice developed, respectively, by Rawls, Deleuze, Lacan, Zizek and from the perspective of Mahayana Buddhism, as well as (Orthodox) Han-Chinese Confucianism and Daoism. The book applies these theoretical perspectives in analyzing different socio-legal issues in post-97 Hong Kong, including transgender rights to marriage, domestic violence, sexual assault, child sexual abuse and race. The book concludes by proposing singular possible strategies, which include Degenderization, Desexualization, De-ageing, by which justice(s) can hopefully be re-manufactured and challenged. This book is relevant to researchers and students of law, philosophy, sociology, gender studies and cultural studies.

This book considers how a phenomenon as complex as coercive control can be criminalised. The recognition and ensuing criminalisation of coercive control in the UK and Ireland has been the focus of considerable international attention. It has generated complex questions about the "best" way to criminalise domestic abuse. This work reviews recent domestic abuse criminal law reform in the UK and Ireland. In particular, it defines coercive control and explains why using traditional criminal law approaches to prosecute it does not work. Laws passed in England and Wales versus Scotland represent two different approaches to translating coercive control into a criminal offence. This volume explains how and why the jurisdictions have taken different approaches and examines the advantages and disadvantages of each. As jurisdictions around the world review what steps need to be taken to improve national criminal justice responses to domestic abuse, the question of what works, and why, at the intersection of domestic abuse and the criminal law has never been more important. As such, the book will be a vital resource for lawyers, policy-makers and activists with an interest in domestic abuse law reform.

What kinds of obligations do parents have towards their children as family life becomes more complex? Many children pass through a number of different households,living with one or both parents and later step parents and step brothers and sisters. How are the new forms of family life accommodated in the legal system? The answer is that parenthood, rather than marriage, is now emerging as the central mechanism through which moral principles are converted into legal and social obligations. This study of 250 children who do not live with both of their parents shows, however, that despite the comparative legal emptiness of marriage, the experience of living longer with both parents than is usually the case of children of cohabiting or single parents endows the child with social capital in the form of enduring involvement with the outside parent, even after divorce, and that this happens to a greater extent than for children whose parents were not married.

This contribution to comparative family law brings together essays on a range of issues in family law in the United States and England, showing how they stand at the beginning of the 21st century. This provides an opportunity to examine how family law has reacted to a period of change in family life widely held to be without precedent. The legal analyses are set within critical accounts of wider social and family policy and against a fully explored demographic background provided by leading scholars in these areas.

Family justice requires not only a legal framework within which personal obligations are regulated over the life course, but also a justice system which can deliver legal information, advice and support at times of change of status or family stress, together with mechanisms for negotiation, dispute management and resolution, with adjudication as the last resort. The past few years have seen unparalleled turbulence in the way family justice systems function. These changes are associated with economic constraints in many countries, including England and Wales, where legal aid for private family matters has largely disappeared. But there is also a change in ideology in a number of jurisdictions, including Canada, towards what is sometimes called neo-liberalism, whereby the state seeks to reduce its area of activity while at the same time maintaining strong views on family values. Legal services may become fragmented and marketised, and the role of law and lawyers reduced, while self-help web based services expand. The contributors to this volume share their anxieties about the impact on the ability of individuals to achieve fair and informed resolution in family matters.

This book provides a stimulating, carefully planned introduction to the key issues and debates within family law from some of the leading authorities within their field. It is designed both as a self standing book focusing on the key issues in the subject, and as a supplement to more detailed textbooks on the subject. It is essential reading for anybody studying or practising in the field of family law. Each chapter is concerned with one of the main areas of family law (such as adoption, domestic violence, marrriage and divorce), and covers a range of themes, including the public/private divide, balancing the interests of family members, moral values and family law, cost and the legal system, and the enforcement of family law. The book reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the debates on family law, and the difficult social and political issues which these have raised.

Winner of the 2010 Distinguished Book Award from the American Psychological Association's 44th Division (the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues) An in-depth, transnational primer on the current state of same-sex marriage post legalization The summer of 2008 was the summer of love and commitment for gays and lesbians in the United States. Thousands of same-sex couples stood in line for wedding licenses all over California in the first few days after same-sex marriage was legalized. On the other side of the country, Massachusetts, the very first state to give gay couples marriage rights, took the last step to full equality by allowing same-sex couples from other states to marry there as well. These happy times for same-sex couples were the hallmark of true equality for some, yet others questioned whether the very bedrock of society was crumbling. What would this new step portend? In order to find out the impact of same-sex marriage, M. V. Lee Badgett traveled to a land where it has been legal for same-sex couples to marry since 2001: the Netherlands. Badgett interviews gay couples to find out how this step has affected their lives. We learn about the often surprising changes to their relationships, the reactions of their families, and work colleagues. Moreover, Badgett is interested in the ways that the institution itself has been altered for the larger society. How has the concept of marriage changed? When Gay People Get Married gives readers a primer on the current state of the same-sex marriage debate, and a new way of framing the issue that provides valuable new insights into the political, social, and personal stakes involved. The experiences of other countries and these pioneering American states serve as a crystal ball as we grapple with this polarizing issue in the American context. The evidence shows both that marriage changes gay people more than gay people change marriage, and that it is the most liberal countries and states making the first move to recognize gay couples. In the end, Badgett compellingly shows that allowing gay couples to marry does not destroy the institution of marriage and that many gay couples do benefit, in expected as well as surprising ways, from the legal, social, and political rights that the institution offers.

Each year, a number of youth who migrate alone and clandestinely from China to the United States are apprehended, placed in removal proceedings, and designated as unaccompanied minors. These young migrants represent only a fraction of all unaccompanied minors in the US, yet they are in many ways depicted as a preeminent professional and moral cause by immigration advocates. In and beyond the legal realm, the figure of the ""vulnerable Chinese child"" powerfully legitimates legal claims and attorneys' efforts. At the same time, the transnational ambitions and obligations of Chinese youth implicitly unsettle this figure. Youths' maneuvers not only belie attorneys' reliance on racialized discourses of childhood and the Chinese family, but they also reveal more broad uncertainties around legal frameworks, institutional practices, health and labor rights-and cause lawyering itself. Based on three years of fieldwork across the United States, Lawyering an Uncertain Cause is a novel study of the complex and often contradictory rights, responsibilities, and expectations that motivate global youth and the American attorneys who work on their behalf.

This book deals with a subject that has recently been the focus of debate and law reform in many jurisdictions: how much scope should spouses have to conclude agreements concerning their financial affairs - and under what circumstances should such agreements be binding and enforceable? These marital agreements include pre-nuptial, post-nuptial and separation agreements. The book is the result of a British Academy-funded research project which investigated and compared the relevant law of England and Wales, Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and the jurisdictions of the United States. In addition to chapters on these jurisdictions, the book includes a chapter on the 'English practitioner's view'. It also provides a comparative analysis of the different matrimonial property regimes and the rules on marital agreements that explores underlying themes and principlesand makes recommendations for regulating marital agreements. A key theme is the function and effect of marital agreements in the different jurisdictions. Thus, each chapter first explains the underlying 'default' rules for ancillary relief/matrimonial property and maintenance. It then analyses the current rules for marital agreements, and gives a brief account of the private international law rules. The book provides a comprehensive source of reference on ancillary relief/matrimonial property and maintenance and the rules on pre-nuptial, post-nuptial and separation agreements in 14 jurisdictions. It offers guidance for academics and practitioners dealing with international matters, and a basis for discussions on law reform. 'I applaud the vision and perseverance of Jens Scherpe in having conceived this book and, with so much distinguished help, in now bringing it to birth. I will be using it for many years and I warmly invite my fellow family lawyers across the world to do likewise.' Foreword by The Rt Hon Lord Wilson of Culworth, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom