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News Tip: Experts on Family, Law Available to Comment on Gay Marriage Ruling

"Paradoxical feature" in ruling is difference in homosexual, heterosexual marriage trends, says associate professor Christina Gibson-Davis

Marriage Trends in America

  • Quotes:“The paradoxical feature of this ruling is that it comes as marriage among heterosexual Americans is at all-time lows,” says Christina Gibson-Davis, an associate professor at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy. “So as one segment of society has been fighting very hard to have the right to marry, a much larger segment of that same society is forgoing that same right.""The Supreme Court ruling reinforces the idea that people place a high value on marriage, but that value, for most Americans, isn’t enough to get them to the altar."
  • Bio:Christina Gibson-Davis is an associate professor at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy. Her research interests center around social and economic differences in family formation patterns. She is currently focusing on how divergent patterns of family formation affect economic inequality and the health and wellbeing of families and children.http://sanford.duke.edu/people/faculty/gibson-davis-christina-m
  • For additional comment, contact Christina Gibson-Davis at:cgibson@duke.edu

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Constitutional Law And Marriage Equality

  • Quotes:"As anticipated, the Supreme Court has held that same-sex couples, too, have a fundamental right to marry that is protected by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses," says professor Neil Siegel, a constitutional law scholar at Duke University's School of Law."Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion explains how the Constitution's protections of liberty and equality can interact to protect human dignity, including the 'equal dignity' of same-sex couples 'in the eyes of the law.' The decision faithfully applies, and persuasively extends, the court’s many precedents that protect 'certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy,' as the court put it today. The lawfulness of this decision is exceeded only by its decency."
  • Bio:Siegel is a professor of law and political science, co-director of the Program in Public Law and director of the DC Summer Institute on Law and Policy. He is a leading constitutional law scholar who has focused much of his recent scholarship on same-sex marriage and issues involving the Affordable Care Act.http://www.law.duke.edu/fac/siegel
  • Archive Video Sample: "The Supreme Court Confronts DOMA and Same-Sex Marriage: A Discussion" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0-DySZ4b7Q&list=PLPllY2puNnqbPRpTH7W-MMJGqDzQJC7X1&index=5

  • For additional comment, contact Siegel at:siegel@law.duke.edu