A free symposium on Wisconsin's proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage and prohibit civil unions will be held Monday, February 7 in Lubar Commons (Room 7200) of the UW Law School, from noon to 3 p.m.
The event is open to faculty, staff, law students, graduate students, and attorneys. CLE credit approval is pending, with on-site registration.
The event is sponsored by the Project for Law and the Humanities; cosponsored by the Wisconsin Council of Churches.
The Wisconsin Legislature, in 2003 Assembly Joint Resolution 66, has resolved to amend the Wisconsin Constitution to define marriage as a legal status exclusively between one man and one woman and to preclude unmarried persons from having the benefit of marriage or any similar legal status. The panel will consider the proposed amendment and whether it represents appropriate public policy.
The symposium will be hosted by Len Kaplan, Mortimer M. Jackson Professor of Law. Professor Kaplan is a co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of Graven Images: Studies in Culture, Law and the Sacred. He is a founder and co-director of the Law School's Project in Law and the Humanities.
Panelists and Presentations:
Scott Anderson, "The Same Gender Marriage Debate: Blurring the Line Between Church and State"
Scott Anderson is the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, which represents twelve Protestant and Christian Orthodox denominations, 3000 congregations, and over one million church members throughout Wisconsin. He has broad-based ecumenical experience and has received awards for collaborative work in social justice advocacy. Anderson is a graduate of UC-Davis and of Princeton Theological Seminary; he holds a M.A. in Public Policy and Administration from California State University, Sacramento.
Claudia Card, "Gay Divorce: Thoughts on the Legal Regulation of Marriage"
Claudia Card is the Emma Goldman Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, where she also holds teaching affiliations with Women's Studies, Environmental Studies, Jewish Studies, and LGBT Studies. Her most recent books are The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil (Oxford 2002) and The Cambridge Companion to Simone de Beauvoir (2003). She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities and is at work on two books, one on responding to atrocities and the other, an introduction to feminist philosophy.
Carl J. Rasmussen, "Wisconsin Constitutional Amendment to Prohibit Civil Unions: Bad Public Policy"
Carl J. Rasmussen is a Madison lawyer, former Chair of the Real Property, Probate and Trust Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin and a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. In addition to his law degree, Carl holds a Ph.D. in Sixteenth Century English Literature from UW-Madison. He has published in refereed journals in the United States, England and Germany and has co-authored a book published by Cambridge University Press. Carl serves on the Board of Trustees for the United Way of Dane County Foundation, and on the Board of Visitors of the English department at the UW-Madison. He is a member of the Commission on Faith and Order, Wisconsin Conference of Churches, and the editorial board of the journal Graven Images.
Jane Schacter, "Sexuality Debates and Democracy"
Jane Schacter, James E. and Ruth B. Doyle-Bascom Professor of Law, teaches in the areas of Constitutional Law, Legislation, Sexual Orientation and the Law, and Civil Procedure. In 1998, she was awarded the UW-Madison Chancellor's Award for Distinguished Teaching, and in 1996, she received the Wisconsin Law Alumni Association's Teacher of the Year Award. Professor Schacter's research explores problems of legal interpretation, as well as debates about sexuality and law, with an emphasis in both areas on questions of democratic theory. Her articles have appeared in the Harvard, Yale, Stanford, N.Y.U. and Michigan law reviews, among others.
Jonathan Shofer, "Same Gender Erotic and Sexual Relations in the Bible and Jewish Tradition"
Jonathan Schofer is Belzer Assistant Professor in the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies. He teaches and writes about the literature, thought, and religion of late ancient rabbis, with a focus on ethics and self-formation. He also has strong interests in comparative and theoretical inquiry. His first book - The Making of a SageA Study in Rabbinic Ethics - is being published by The University of Wisconsin Press (2005), and articles from that project appear in The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy and the Association for Jewish Studies Review.
For more information, contact Pam Hollenhorst, Associate Director, Institute for Legal Studies, at pshollen@wisc.edu.
Submitted by on January 28, 2005
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