Swiss Parliament takes historic step for same-sex marriage

Swiss parliament has ironed out the last differences on a bill initiated seven years ago, paving the way for same-sex couples to marry. This content was published on December 9, 2020 – 18:06 December 9, 2020 – 18:06

See: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/parliament-takes-historic-step-for-same-sex-marriage/46214310

Left-wing parties called the agreement a “historic step” toward equal rights for homosexual and heterosexual couples.

The last sticking point concerned whether lesbian couples should have access to sperm donations, which some right-wing parties opposed. The House eventually agreed with the Senate that this should be allowed if it complies with Swiss law, guaranteeing the child knows their origins.

The Senate had also discussed at length the question of whether the constitution needed to be amended. Right-wing parties had called for a change to the constitution if “marriage for all” was to be allowed but were ultimately overruled. 

Representatives of the majority argued that the concept of marriage has changed over time, but it has always been sufficient to make these changes in law rather than the constitution.

Switzerland is one of the few European countries where same-sex couples has not been allowed. Up to now, same-sex couples have only been able to have a “registered partnership” but this does not entail the same rights and duties as marriage especially when it comes to naturalization and joint adoption of children.

Registered partners will now be able to transfer their civil status into a legal marriage.

However, the new law makes some distinctions between same-sex and heterosexual couples. For example, surrogacy for male couples is restricted as part of the “marriage for all” law. Survivor’s pension was also excluded from the bill.

The Federal Democratic Union, a Christian, ultra-conservative party, has already announced its plans to launch a referendum against the “marriage for all” project.

“Marriage for all” was launched in 2013 through a parliamentary initiative of the centrist Green Liberals. Several versions of the text have since been debated in parliament. On December 1, the Senate voted in favour of the bill, and the House agreed on the final changes on Wednesday. The bill will now go to a final vote.

USA: Labor Department implements rule allowing employers to discriminate to protect ‘religious liberty’

The US Department of Labor implemented a new rule Monday that allows federal contractors to discriminate against employees under the guise of religious freedom. This ruling could affect more than four million employees.

The rule expands the definition of religious organizations to include for-profit organizations as well as traditional religious charities and churches. It also allows employers to subjectively define what types of discrimination fit within the religious tenets they ascribe to.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) provides an example of how this rule expands a company’s ability to discriminate against employees for a wide scope of behaviors:

This definition expands the permitted discrimination beyond, for example, a Jewish social services organization being allowed to require that its program director be Jewish, to the organization being permitted to fire any employee, including one not of the faith, who does not follow all the tenets of the organization’s faith.

The rule contradicts the language of the order it claims to clarify, which prohibits religious organizations from discriminating against employees for belonging to protected categories such as sex or race. The ACLU says, “As long as discrimination can be cast as ‘adherence to religious tenets,’ an employer could claim a license to discriminate under the Proposed Rule.”

Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia approved this regulation within the last month-and-a-half of his tenure in the department. Critics predict that President-elect Joe Biden administration will roll back the rule but say it could take years to get through administrative red tape.

Did you know that about 30 percent of charitable giving happens in December?

It’s an important month for nonprofits like JURIST that rely on donor support. Your gift of $50, $100, $200 or $500 will help JURIST to keep its legal news and commentary free and accessible to a worldwide public.

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LGBTQI+ Workplace Inclusion Conference: SAVE THE DATE AND CALL FOR PAPERS

Dear colleagues,

Please save the date for the LGBTQI+ Workplace Inclusion Conference, to be held on 20-21 May 2021 and organized by Leiden University in collaboration with the Workplace Pride Foundation.

The aim of the conference is to showcase the state of the art of research on LGBTQI+ workplace inclusion, to contribute to building a diverse platform of researchers, and to facilitate the dialogue between scientists, advocates, policymakers, employers, and employees

The conference features keynote speeches by Dr. Lee Badgett (UMass Amherst) and Yvonne Muthoni (Kenya Open for Business), several multi-disciplinary academic sessions, as well as focused panel sessions that bring together researchers, employers, employees, practitioners and policymakers around topics relevant to LGBTQI+ workplace inclusion, broadly defined. These topics may pertain to both formal and informal workplaces, and include, but are not limited to, the challenges and opportunities that LGBTQI+ people experience in the areas of training, recruitment, selection, promotion and retention, the policies and regulations affecting these areas, as well as promising interventions and solutions. 

The conference provides:

– A forum for scholars and other researchers studying these topics to present new findings, discuss future directions, and consolidate and extend their networks,

– An opportunity for employers, employees and civil society organizations to learn about the latest scholarly insights on the topic

– An opportunity for all present to learn about the ways in which science can inform practice and vice versa.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the conference will primarily be conducted online. As such, we hope to be able to include speakers and attendees from a diversity of locations and backgrounds.

Please consider submitting a talk (see below) and check out our conference website for how to join the mailing list and for periodic updates regarding the program, registration and event details.

For further inquiries, please contact us at lgbtqi.inclusion@gmail.com.

Looking forward to your submissions and attendance!

Jojanneke van der Toorn, Professor of LGBT Workplace Inclusion, Leiden University

Gaitho Waruguru, LLM, Leiden University

Call for papers

We invite your submissions for a research talk. Please submit your abstract HERE, summarizing your findings, detailing their relevance to the study of LGBTQI+ workplace inclusion, and indicating their practical implications (if there are any). Abstracts should be in the English language and may be a maximum of 200 words in length.

Abstracts will be assessed in terms of their relevance to the study of LGBTQI+ workplace inclusion and their scholarly quality. We will also take the diversity of presenters and disciplines into account. Submissions are encouraged from a wide variety of disciplines including but not limited to law, economics, psychology, and sociology, so long as they relate directly to the Conference’s theme.

If selected, your will be invited to present your research in a video recording, which will be made available to the conference participants and will likely be accompanied by a live Q&A session.

Deadline for submissions: January 11th, 2021, 11:59pm (GMT+1).

Decisions will be communicated by: February 15^th, 2012

—
Prof. Dr. Jojanneke van der Toorn

Professor of LGBT Workplace Inclusion

Social, Economic & Organizational Psychology

Leiden University

www.jvandertoorn.com

Pronouns: she, her, hers

Announcing the Sears Clinical Law Teaching Fellowship on Sexual and Reproductive Health, Law and Policy

UCLA Law’s Williams Institute and Experiential Education Program seek applications for the Sears Clinical Law Teaching Fellowship for 2021-2024. Applicants who intend to pursue a career as a clinical professor and/or public interest lawyer engaged in legislative lawyering and policy work are invited to apply if their practice or research interests are focused on the intersections of sexual and reproductive health, LGBTQ rights, and racial and economic justice. We invite applications from those practicing or working in law, policy, and other disciplinary traditions. We are particularly interested in candidates who have an interest in researching religious liberty arguments to limit both reproductive and LGBTQ rights.  The fellowship offers opportunities for experiential teaching and research designed to prepare the fellow to seek a permanent or tenure-track experiential faculty position at a law school, or an advanced position as a public interest lawyer focused on public policy or legislative lawyering. The fellow will co-teach or teach in experiential courses at UCLA Law and be fully engaged with policy and scholarly research projects. The law school will provide teaching mentorship, as well as research support and faculty guidance on research and writing projects.    The law teaching fellowship programs of The Williams Institute and the Experiential Education Program at UCLA Law are some of the oldest in the nation. Together, they have supported over twenty law teaching fellows to secure tenure track appointments at law schools nationwide. Past fellows have secured faculty positions at top law schools including UCLA, UC Davis, UC Irvine, Wisconsin, and Yale. Apply Today

A former student of mine wrote and excellent comparative study: John Curran, Registered partnerships after same-sex marriage – A comparative study of Western European legal systems, in: Jusletter 7. Dezember 2020

https://jusletter.weblaw.ch/juslissues/2020/1048/registered-partnersh_d66694e6d8.html

Let me know if you cannot access it !

@HRW calls on sport governing bodies to halt ‘#SexTesting’ of women athletes ahead of #Olympics

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday called on sport governing bodies like World Athletics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Anti-Doping Agency to stop “sex testing” women runners and athletes.

Sex testing is the practice of using unnecessary medical procedures and testing as conditions to compete in certain events. According to the report, sex testing has been in place for almost a century, but groups like World Athletics and the IOC made it mandatory for women competing in track and field and other running events in the 1960s.

HRW claimed in its report that under the guise of fair competition, sex testing continues to “violate[] a range of internationally protected fundamental rights including privacy, dignity, health, non-discrimination, freedom from ill-treatment, and employment rights.” In addition to violating athletes’ rights, the procedures required under this practice pose the risk of implicating the doctors, sporting bodies and governments required to conduct them in order for athletes to compete.

To find a way to stop these human rights violations, HRW conducted interviews with 13 women athletes of color, all from unnamed, historically exploited countries. The sex testing discussed most is the testing of blood for the “scientifically specious threshold for functional endogenous testosterone that they deemed confers a performance advantage.” 

While HRW’s report made accusations against World Athletics, it also specifically called on the IOC to stop sex testing athletes ahead of the 2021 Summer Olympics:

In advance of the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC)—the supreme authority in international sports—said it was planning to “reflect further on new guidelines for athletes’ inclusion on the basis of sex characteristics and gender identity,” and make significant changes ahead of future Games. The postponement of the Tokyo Games to 2021 provides a valuable window for the IOC to develop guidelines in line with international human rights standards and medical ethics.

HRW laid out the discrimination, surveillance, coercion, and stigma women athletes face, then provided recommendations to specific and general sporting associations and governments to alleviate them. One such recommendation is for World Athletics to rescind the Eligibility Regulations for the Female Classification (Athletes with Differences of Sex Development) 2019.

HRW noted that “[r]egulating fair play is a valid undertaking for sport authorities; committing human rights violations in the process is not.”

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China official refuses to apologize after posting fake image depicting Australian war crimes

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao has refused to apologize for tweeting a fake image depicting Australian war crimes following an Australian Defence Force (ADF) report alleging Australian soldiers were involved in the murder of 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners between 2009 and 2013.

The fake image depicts an Australian soldier with a bloody knife next to a boy holding a lamb. The image references allegations that soldiers used knives to murder two 14-year-old Afghan boys. The ADF report does not support those allegations. The report did find “‘credible evidence’ of unlawful killings and a ‘warrior culture’ within elite units.”

Zhao’s tweet states, “Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts, & call for holding them accountable.” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated the tweet is “truly repugnant, deeply offensive, utterly outrageous.” Morrison noted that Australia is engaged in a transparent process to investigate the alleged war crimes.

The Chinese Embassy in Australia refused to apologize on Tuesday, stating, “The accusations made are simply to serve two purposes. One is to deflect public attention from the horrible atrocities by certain Australian soldiers. The other is to blame China for the worsening of bilateral ties. There may be another attempt to stoke domestic nationalism.”

Tensions between China and Australia have been escalating since Australia called for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19. China followed by imposing tariffs and trade stoppages on Australia, including tariffs of up to 200 percent on Australian wine.

The post China official refuses to apologize after posting fake image depicting Australian war crimes appeared first on JURIST – News – Legal News & Commentary.

England and #Wales court rules children under 16 likely cannot consent to #puberty-blocking drugs in #gender reassignment efforts

A high court of England and Wales ruled on Monday that children under the age of 16 are probably not capable of providing informed consent when being prescribed puberty-blocking drugs to address gender dysphoria. As such, the high court suspended such clinical treatment for children below 16 unless the parties are able to gain the authorization of the court to proceed with treatment.

The court applied the Gillick competency test to make its determination. This test comes from a 1984 case that requires an assessment of a child’s “maturity and understanding and the nature of the consent required” before concluding that the child has provided informed consent. The child must be told the advantages and disadvantages of a proposed treatment and they must be able to make a “reasonable assessment” of such factors first.

The court held that:

There will be enormous difficulties in a child under 16 understanding and weighing up this information and deciding whether to consent to the use of puberty blocking medication. It is highly unlikely that a child aged 13 or under would be competent to give consent to the administration of puberty blockers. It is doubtful that a child aged 14 or 15 could understand and weigh the long-term risks and consequences of the administration of puberty blockers.

In contrast, the court stated that those 16 and over enjoy a presumption of their ability to provide consent to medical treatment. In making its decision, the court weighed legal competency standards, the testimonials of individuals who were glad they were able to transition, and the testimonials of those who were not.

While the court acknowledged the thorough efforts by prescribers to provide information to the children, parents and caregivers about any potential short- or long-term effects of puberty blockers, the court did not believe children were capable of understanding and weighing the significance of potential effects.

The post England and Wales court rules children under 16 likely cannot consent to puberty-blocking drugs in gender reassignment efforts appeared first on JURIST – News – Legal News & Commentary.

Switzerland: #metoo: EPFL students denounce harassment, racism cases

Students at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) have called out cases of unreported sexism, homophobia and racism at the institution. The EPFL says it has “zero tolerance” for such behaviour. Polyquity, a student association for gender equality at EPFL, has posted a video on social media of five testimonies from students pointing to latent discrimination, including sexist remarks, sexual harassment, threats and homophobia. It said it had decided to use these channels to make the EPFL aware of the issue. “Every woman has a story to tell and it’s a good moment for people to realise the extent of the problem,” Marijn Van Der Meer, the president of Polyquity, told Swiss public television RTS, which first revealed the story. “We have already collected around 20 testimonies… and since we published the video, a further 20 have arrived. I hope this is going to cause a shock,” she told RTS earlier this week. “The EPFL management must react and take measures…

Read: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/-metoo–epfl-students-denounce-harassment–racism-cases/46200760

Hungary/EU/Belgium: An anti-gay Hungarian Member of the European Parliament has resigned after being caught by the Brussels police fleeing a 25-man orgy through a window

An ally of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban resigned from the European Parliament after attending what was described as a 25-man orgy in Brussels. Jozsef Szajer quit as an MEP on Sunday and later said he was present at a “private party.” The police found Szajer and 24 other naked men at the gathering, including diplomats, local reports said. Szajer played a key role in the Orban government’s crackdown on LGBTQ rights in Hungary.

Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/hungarian-mep-resigns-breaking-covid-rules-gay-orgy-brussels-2020-12?r=US&IR=T