April 15, 2010 event: Reconciling Conflicting Autonomy Rights: Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty

Reconciling Conflicting Autonomy Rights:
Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty

Alan Brownstein, Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law

Thursday, April 15, 2010 — 7:15 PM
SMUD Headquarters, 6201 S Street, Sacramento

Arguments about the need to accommodate religious objections to public
policy mandates have been debated throughout American history.
Religious individuals and institutions have sought exemptions from
prohibitions against polygamy, civil rights regulations prohibiting
discrimination on the basis of race, religion and gender in hiring and
places of public accommodation, hospital policies requiring health care
providers to perform abortions and sterilization's and a host of other
regulatory requirements. That history provides a range of possible
models that may be used to understand claims about the need to
accommodate religious objectors opposed to same-sex marriages. In his
talk, Professor Brownstein will critically evaluate alternative frameworks
for thinking about the current debate and describe what he believes to
be the most appropriate analytic model for resolving these issues.

Sponsored by Americans United for Separation of Church & State and cosponsors:
• American Civil Liberties Union, Sacramento County Chapter • Atheists & Other Freethinkers (AOF) • California Council of Churches • California Church IMPACT • California Faith for Equality, Sacramento Region • Humanist Association of the Greater Sacramento Area • Jewish Community Relations Council, Sacramento Region • Lodi United • Sacramento Lawyers Chapter of the American Constitution Society • Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry-CA •