Episode 042 - Conversation with Professor of Law William D. Araiza

Episode 042 - Conversation with Professor of Law William D. Araiza.mp3

In this pod cast, BLS Professor of Law William D. Araiza discusses the recent California Supreme Court decision in Strauss v. Horton upholding Proposition 8 and its impact on the ongoing debate over same-sex marriage. Throughout the conversation, Prof. Araiza, who recently joined the BLS faculty in January 2009 from Loyola Law School Los Angeles, refers to his October 2008 Review Essay: Four Books on Gay Rights and Same-Sex Marriage where he reviewed four books dealing with the complexities raised in the same-sex marriage debate. Publication in the Journal of the History of Sexuality is expected in 2010. Among the titles of the books included in Prof. Araiza's review are:

The Long Arc of Justice: Lesbian and Gay Marriage, Equality, and Rights by Richard D. Mohr (Call #HQ76.3.U5 M643 2005)

Gay Marriage: For Better or for Worse? What We’ve Learned from the Evidence by William N. Eskridge, Jr. & Darren R. Spedale (Call #K699 .E85 2006)

These two books are part of the BLS library collection and are of interest from an argumentation perspective on the topic of same-sex marriage. As the review points out, the 142 page Mohr book is an effort “to engage in a non-academic discussion of the role of gays and lesbians in contemporary American society” while the more substantial 336 page Eskridge book examines “examines the empirical evidence of the effects same-sex union rights have had on Scandinavian nations that pioneered legal status for same-sex unions, starting with Denmark in 1989 and continuing with the rest of Scandinavia through the 1990’s”. To download a copy of Prof. Araiza's Review Essay: Four Books on Gay Rights and Same-Sex Marriage, see his Selected Works page which has links to his other scholarship.