Duke Law Monograph -- "Perceiving Orientation: Defining Sexuality After Obergefell

Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy --

http://djglp.law.duke.edu/

http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1308&context=djglp

Perceiving Orientation: Defining Sexuality After Obergefell

by Mary Ziegler Click here for a PDF file of this article

Abstract

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, constitutional jurisprudence will have to more clearly define sexual orientation itself. The Obergefell majority describes sexuality as binary and suggests that any sexual orientation is immutable, normal, and constitutive of individual identity. Other scholars have shown how the kind of binary created by Obergefell excludes those with more fluid sexual identities and experiences from legal protection.
This Article illuminates new problems with Obergefell’s approach to sexuality by putting that definition in historical context. While describing sexuality as a matter of orientation may now seem inevitable, this Article shows that nothing could be further from the truth. In the 1970s, leading GLBTQ activists considered and rejected the language of sexual orientation. Instead, movement members battled for civil-rights laws banning discrimination on the basis of sexual or affectional preference.
The rhetoric of preference gained support for reasons that remain relevant to sexualorientation jurisprudence today. Drawing on the history of debates about sexual orientation, this Article proposes a definition that protects individuals on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation. A perceived-orientation approach addresses problems mentioned in leading studies as well as those spotlighted by activists in over time. First, this strategy will make it harder for discriminators to separate conduct and status. This approach also protects those who do not fit within established heterosexual or homosexual categories, but does not depend for its success on the rejection of those
entrenched binaries. Perhaps most importantly, a perceived-orientation approach promises relief to all victims of orientation-based stereotyping, not only to those who can prove their “true” status.

Here, Obergefell’s definition of sexual orientation is revealing. Kennedy cites the American Psychological Association (APA)’s definition for support. 237

In amicus briefs in both Windsor and Obergefell, the APA has described sexuality in the following terms:

Sexual orientation refers to an enduring disposition to experience sexual, affectional, and/or romantic attractions to one or both sexes. It also encompasses an individual’s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, on behaviors expressing those attractions, and on membership in a community of others who share those attractions and behaviors. Although sexual orientation ranges along a continuum from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual, it is usually discussed in three categories: heterosexual (having sexual and romantic attraction primarily or exclusively to members of the other sex), homosexual (having sexual and romantic attraction primarily or exclusively to members of one’s own sex), and bisexual (having a significant degree of sexual and romantic attraction to both sexes). 238

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Here's the link to SCOTUS, "Obergefell v. Hodges"

http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/obergefell-v-hodges/

Publication Citation

Obergefell v. Hodges

Linked with:

• Tanco v. Haslam
• DeBoer v. Snyder
• Bourke v. Beshear

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
14-556	6th Cir.	Apr 28, 2015 Tr.Aud.	Jun 26, 2015	5-4	Kennedy	OT 2014

Holding: The Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state.
Judgment: Reversed, 5-4, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy on June 26, 2015. Chief Justice Roberts filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Scalia and Thomas joined. Justice Scalia filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Thomas joined. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Scalia joined. Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Scalia and Thomas joined.
Mary Ziegler, Perceiving Orientation: Defining Sexuality After Obergefell, 23 Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy 223-261 (2016)
Available at: http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/djglp/vol23/iss2/3