On may 2nd, from 1 PM to  3 PM, the Laboratory will welcome Mrs Ivana Isailovic, Ph.D., Boulton Fellow at the law faculty (McGill University), who will give a workshop entitled :

Same-sex, but not the Same Same-sex Marriage in France and the US, and the Universalist Narrative

Following the recent adoption of same-sex marriage across various jurisdictions, scholars, judges and legislators are confronted with a series of methodological and normative questions: how should these reforms be described, compared and evaluated? The predominant view seems to be a universalist one, according to which the adoption of same-sex marriage is a just and inevitable reform implying a global trend. Drawing on the recent US and French same-sex marriage reforms, in this essay, I deploy a socio-legal and pluralist framework which argues for a contextual reading which strives to appreciate fully the local social dynamics which impact law's meaning. I argue that from this vantage point the universalist approach produces distorted and narrow descriptions of legal evolutions particularly evident in the case of same-sex marriage. In order to show that, I examine four aspects which distinguish these two recent and contemporaneous reforms: the role played by rights-based arguments in the regulation of family relations, the understanding of law in relation to gay and lesbian historical marginalization and social change, the focus of the debate (the definition of marriage in the US and filiation in France) and, finally, the type of expertise underpinning these legal arguments. I suggest that refraining from using universalism when analyzing same-sex marriage reforms might help policymakers, activists and commentators adopt analyses embracing complexity and plurality rather than uniformity and homogeneity. This provides a better understanding of the meaning same-sex marriage has for local communities and may enhance knowledge about law's ability to promote social change.

Room A7-160, University of Sherbrooke