Word: legal
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...legal case that gay-rights activists feared to see is about to get under way in a federal courtroom in San Francisco. For the next several weeks, plaintiffs will argue that the U.S. Constitution forbids states from restricting marriage to one man and one woman. The case has brought together some of the most powerful appellate attorneys in America but has divided gay-rights lawyers and legal scholars who fear that even if successful, the case could set the issue on a collision course with a less-than-sympathetic U.S. Supreme Court...
...high court has issued powerfully pro-gay-rights decisions at key points in the past 20 years - including striking down criminal statutes forbidding gay sex six years ago. But it has never voiced a word of enthusiasm for gay marriage. That has left scholars and longtime legal veterans of the gay-rights movement fearing disaster for gay marriage, should the issue be decided by the conservative-leaning Justices. "When I try to count the votes in favor of same-sex marriage on the Supreme Court, I have trouble getting to one," Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor...
...election-night wins by groups opposed to gay marriage will be reversed. Voters in more than 30 states have rejected gay marriage. That's what Californians did when they supported Prop 8 in late 2008, reversing a landmark state Supreme Court ruling that not only made gay marriage legal there, but gave gays and lesbians the same broad-based protection against discrimination that racial minorities enjoy. (See the top 10 news stories...
...which she says is a "good thing." Last year, she signed up for stickK.com, a site founded by Yale economics professor Dean Karlan, whose research has shown that signing commitment contracts and publicly announcing a goal helps people stick to it. (The extra K in stickK is shorthand in legal writing for "contract.") Users are not required to wager any money when they sign up, but the serious ones do. Some 30% fork over their credit card information upfront and specify how much money should be automatically charged if they fail to reach their goal. These users also designate...
These weapons are more than a historical oddity. They are a violation of the spirit of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) - the 1968 agreement governing nuclear weapons that provides a legal restraint to the nuclear ambitions of rogue states. Because "nuclear burden-sharing," as the dispersion of B-61s in Europe is called, was set up before the NPT came into force, it is technically legal. But as signatories to the NPT, the four European countries and the U.S. have pledged "not to receive the transfer ... of nuclear weapons or control over such weapons directly, or indirectly." That...