Feminist Law Prof Marc Spindelman published a column with this title in recent issue of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Below is an excerpt:
A funny thing happened in the Ohio Supreme Court last month: For the first time, the court mapped a future for lesbian and gay rights.
What makes this so surprising isn’t the court’s notorious conservatism. It’s that the case in which it did so, State v. Carswell, wasn’t, on its face, about lesbians or gay men, but rather unmarried women who are domestically abused.
The Carswell case only required the court to determine whether Ohio’s new anti-gay marriage amendment nullified the legal protections unmarried victims of domestic abuse currently receive. The court declares there’s no conflict between the two legal provisions, giving unmarried, heterosexual women comfort – even a boost. Their legal rights against sex-based violence at men’s hands are, happily, secured. But so are the rights of victims of same-sex domestic abuse, including lesbians and gay men. Earlier decisions, undisturbed by Carswell, declared them entitled to the same freedom from domestic violence that unmarried heterosexuals have.
Read this interesting piece in its entirety here.
one may object to the term DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. Is not violence that is illegal outside the domestic setting also illegal inside it?