The author recommends Canada as a model of marriage incrementalism for the United States. Under this scheme, "a more effective constitutional approach may be to push for more state laws banning sexual orientation discrimination. After this, advocating for state civil unions and then federal recognition of civil unions are crucial steps toward same-sex marriage." In this sense she is arguing a version of William Eskridge's Equality Practice (Routledge, 2002), in which he counsels postponing marriage rights for gay men and lesbians until the majority of Americans have grown comfortable with the idea; and against James Donovan's argument that rights are not the kind of thing that can be parceled out without doing damage to the idea of the right itself ("Baby Steps or One Fell Swoop?: The Incremental Extension of Rights is Not a Defensible Strategy," 38 Cal. W. L. Rev. 1 (2001)). Whether one accepts Alquist's view hinges largely on whether one accepts her claim that "Regardless of what same-sex relationships are called or how they are perceived, same-sex couples deserve equality and for now, at a minimum, equality needs to mean access to the federal benefits and obligations afforded heterosexual married couples." Some believe that the primary good of marriage -- however useful the government benefits may be -- is in fact the way it changes the perception of the same-sex relationship as being valued and worth supporting. Those who prioritize these intrinsic intangible benefits of marriage over the economic and practical ones, will probably continue to push for marriage.

This article examines the use of foreign and international law in the adjudication of U.S. constitutional claims in gay rights cases. It explores the distinction between structural provisions and individual rights provisions, and it argues that foreign law can be particularly useful in advancing individual rights claims. Both due process and equal protection claims are considered.

Anthology consisting mostly of papers presented at a 2005 conference at Trinity College in Dublin. Contributors explore moral, philosophical and legal issues related to committed relationships under law, with an emphasis on same-sex couples and their families and the law of Ireland.

Canada and the United States began their debates concerning same-sex marriage from fundamentally similar positions: both assumed marriage to be one-man-one-woman, and both offered similar constitutional guarantees of equality before the law. Reviewing each country's subsequent legal wranglings, the authors ask what factors led Canada to recognize same-sex marriages in 2005, while the U.S. considers constitutional amendments banning them. Adopting a clear rule that religious organizations could not be forced to perform such unions certainly helped--an issue more likely to arise, one supposes less in the manner of demanding specific performance by an unwilling clergy, than in demanding access to valued venues for ceremonies. The authors are also hopeful that, as the U.S. Supreme Court becomes more open to looking at foreign constitutional law for instructive models of how to handle our own basically similar philosophical problems such as the meaning of equal protection, the arguments developed in the Canadian context can guide to a more gay-friendly outcome.

Intersexed persons are born with external genitalia that are fully neither male nor female, creating problems for a system of "allocating rights on the basis of sex," especially in the areas of employment and marriage. Rellis contrasts the treatment of those born intersexed in the United States -- usually triggering emergency "corrective surgery aimed at 'normalizing' external genitalia to fit societal expecations" -- with those in the India, the hijras, a group she describes as "beginning to gain legal recognition in India when they self-identify as a third gender." The "E" mentioned in the title is one example, an official third-gender designation allowed (referring to "eunuch") for documents such as passports. The author urges reforms that ensure "a constitutional right to self-identify outside the gender binary based on the fundamental right to privacy and bodily integrity derived from the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause," and identifies some statutory efforts such as the International Bill of Gender Rights adopted by the International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy as important first steps.

Those wishing a compilation of brief descriptions of the means by which many countries -- "industrialized democracies" -- handle the issue of same-sex partner immigration will find this an especially helpful piece. The author's broader objective is to use the experience of these comparable states to suggest workable approaches for the United States. He finds particularly instructive their successes "de-coupling the issues of same-sex unions and same-sex partner immigration" (pun intended, one wonders?).

The author of this article compares the status of same-sex marriage in Canada vs. England and Wales. In response to court challenges, Canada passed the Civil Marriage Act in 2005, which granted same-sex couples the same right to marry as opposite-sex couples. In England and Wales, in contrast, Parliament passed the Civil Partnership Act in 2004, which gave same-sex couples most, but not all, of the same rights as opposite sex couples. The author considers the factors that gave rise to the differing results in England and Canada, and also considers a number of arguments as to why the UK legislation violates the Human Rights Act of 1998.