Papers to be presented at annual meeting of the American Political Science Association

Here is one of several interesting papers to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association:

Jonathan Hensley, Conservative Christian Cause Lawyering, Pluralism, and Same Sex Marriage, American Political Science Association 2009 Toronto Meeting Paper, Social Science Research Network (posted Aug. 13, 2009)

With gay marriage now recognized in four states, and “civil unions” or their equivalent in a few others, conflicts between religious freedom and recognition of same-sex marriage - and between competing versions of pluralism - seem likely. This paper reviews the use of pluralist arguments by Conservative Christian litigation groups, and then examines the arguments made by the same groups in several recent state supreme court cases concerning same-sex marriage. The results show that, for the most part, conservative Christian legal advocacy groups have abandoned their previous commitments to pluralism in their arguments against same-sex marriage.