Pope Francis’s Statement Endorsing Same-Sex Civil Unions Undermines the Moral Legitimacy and Legal Arguments in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia

DAVID S. KEMP, CHARLES E. BINKLEY

David S. Kemp, a professor at Berkeley Law, and Charles E. Binkley, MD, the director of bioethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, consider the implications of Pope Francis’s recently revealed statement endorsing same-sex civil unions as they pertain to a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. Kemp and Binkley argue that the Pope’s statement undermines the moral legitimacy of the Catholic organization’s position and casts a shadow on the premise of its legal arguments.

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Stigma and the Oral Argument in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia

LESLIE C. GRIFFIN

UNLV Boyd School of Law professor Leslie C. Griffin explains why stigma is a central concept that came up during oral argument before the Supreme Court in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. Griffin points out that some religions have long supported racial discrimination, citing their religious texts, but courts prohibited such discrimination, even by religious entities. Griffin argues that just as religious organizations should not enjoy religious freedom to stigmatize people of color, so they should not be able to discriminate—and thus stigmatize—people based on sexual orientation.

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United States v. Stevenson

Docket: 19-3224

Opinion Date: November 4, 2020

Judge: James B. Loken

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Eighth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction for five controlled substance offenses. The court held that the evidence was sufficient to support defendant's convictions for conspiring to distribute crack and heroin and distribution of heroin; defendant's Batson challenge failed because the government offered race-neutral reasons for its peremptory strike and the district court did not clearly err in finding that defendant failed to establish that the government's combination of reasons was pretextual; and there was no error in answering the jury's question for clarification of the term "on or about" and there was no abuse of the district court's substantial discretion in formulating jury instructions.