This Article argues that a key-but-overlooked factor in the Vietnam-era breakdown of the draft system was the Supreme Court’s expansion of the religious conscientious objector (“CO”) exemption. It asserts that the Court understood that the CO exemption violated the Establishment Clause, but rather than strike the exemption down, the Court avoided the constitutional issue by interpreting away the religious element of CO statutes. The Article concludes that the Court’s rulings caused CO exemptions to skyrocket, which in turn caused the draft system to collapse toward the end of the Vietnam War.

For years, legal observers have warned that if the United States Supreme Court recognized a right to same-sex marriage, it would also be forced to recognize a right to polygamous marriage. After the Supreme Court decided Obergefell v. Hodges, right on cue, polygamists seized on the decision in asserting their right to marry more than one person. This Article argues that Obergefell does not actually help the polygamists’ cause. First, it shows that Obergefell defined marriage as a relationship that provides stability for individuals, couples, children, and society. Next, this Article provides a historical overview of monogamy, demonstrating that it has slowly prevailed over polygamy during the past 2,000 years because twospouse marriages strengthen families and society. This Article ultimately concludes that polygamy does not comport with Obergefell’s definition of marriage, and thus the Court should hold that there is no constitutional right to polygamous marriage.

Two related and oft-repeated criticisms of religion are that it promotes regressive sexual mores and patriarchal archetypes. Such criticisms are not very surprising, considering that apex deities in each of the world’s three largest religions—Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism—are all portrayed as male, and each of these religions frown upon non-marital sexual relationships. But this raises a question: why are the world’s most successful religions more patriarchal and less sexually “liberated” than society at large? This article suggests that promotion of marriage and of patriarchal archetypes may be crucial to the transmission of religious values from one generation to the next, as Freudian “Father Complex” theory holds that a healthy relationship with a father is a critical factor in the formation of religious belief. The article provides evidence that, consistent with Vitz’s “Defective Father” hypothesis of atheism, a rise in out-of-wedlock births is highly correlated with a rise in irreligiosity in the United States. The article concludes that this finding could have implications for Islam and Hinduism, and suggests that future studies conducted in India (a religiously-pluralistic, Hindu-majority nation) and Bangladesh (a religiously-pluralistic, Muslim-majority nation) would complement existing research conducted in the United States (a religiously-pluralistic, Christian-majority nation).

Cases concerning polygamous households can present difficult challenges for family courts. Though a growing number of Americans practice polygamy, the lifestyle still remains shrouded in mystery. Many polygamists are religious (and sometimes racial) minorities that have suffered from discrimination. The most influential judicial precedents concerning polygamy come from the nineteenth century and are tinged with religious and racial stereotypes, which can make judges uncomfortable with citing those decisions. There is a need for reliable, unprejudiced, and up‐to‐date information about polygamy that judges can cite while maintaining an image of objectivity and impartiality. This Article seeks to provide that resource. It provides information about the evolutionary influences that shape polygamy, how polygamy is practiced in the modern world, and common problems affecting polygamous households that judges should be aware of.

Contrary to misconceptions, the right to homeschool currently rests on state legislation, not on U.S. Supreme Court precedent. It is dangerous for the homeschooling movement to rely on legislative discretion for its survival, because politically-powerful teachers unions constantly lobby for restrictions on homeschooling. In order to better protect their rights, this Article argues that homeschoolers should seek to establish homeschooling as a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution, and lays out two separate theories that homeschoolers could employ to advance such a claim.

 

First, this Article asserts that, under Washington v. Glucksberg, homeschooling is entitled to constitutional protection because it is “deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition.” Through examining historical practices from ancient Greece and Rome, to common law England, and finally to the modern United States, this Article demonstrates that homeschooling has always been practiced in the Western world, and that states have traditionally refrained from interfering with the practice.

 

It also argues that, under the Court’s recent ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, homeschooling is entitled to constitutional protection because the Court’s rationales for recognizing the right to private education “apply with equal force” to homeschooling. The right of parents to “direct” their children’s education is justified by the fact that parents naturally act in the best interests of their children, and also by the fact that autonomous families play a “critical role” in “developing the decentralized structure of our democratic society.” Both of these rationales apply with equal (or even greater) force to homeschooling.

Dangerous reptile species face a bleak future, as humans are instinctually-driven to kill wild snakes and crocodiles. Fortunately, people are also economically-driven to rear domesticated snakes and crocodiles for their skins. However, regulations that impose barriers to the international trade of endangered species are currently being exploited by wealthy nations such as the US and Australia to protect their domestic reptile markets from foreign competition. This article argues that signatories to the CITES treaty should lift domestic restrictions on the importation of Appendix I reptiles raised in CITES-certified farms, and also support proposals to downgrade dangerous reptiles from Appendix I to Appendix II classification.

From Ho Chi Minh City, attorneys Sesto Vecchi and Gage Raley of Russin & Vecchi discuss how new catfish inspection regulations threaten to disrupt catfish imports from Vietnam, and why the wider seafood industry should be concerned.

Copyright violation and piracy levels in Vietnam rank among the highest in the world, with the recording industry estimating losses to unauthorized uses at 95%. From Ho Chi Minh City, Gage Raley proposes a strategy by which the Vietnamese music industry can get consumers to pay for their digital music downloads.

Many private firms with an appetite for foreign investment capital are forced to go hungry because of Vietnam’s tight investment controls. However, some innovate private and government thinking can deliver a variety of foreign shareholding options, writes RUSSIN & VECCHI.

Proponents of gay marriage have long argued that laws banning the practice violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the United States Constitution and their counterparts in state constitutions. They contend that same-sex couples have the same fundamental right to marry as heterosexual couples, and that states have no rational basis for prohibiting marriages between members of the same sex. This Note puts forward a theory of marriage that undermines both arguments. It asserts that a central function of marriage is to establish paternity. The Note surveys the writings of philosophers, scholars, and jurists from Aristotle to Blackstone, together with the work of modern evolutionary biologists, to show how all characterize marriage as a means of identifying fathers and assigning them parental responsibilities. In the days before DNA testing, monogamy was the only reliable way of determining paternal identity. This fact profoundly shaped the institution of marriage from antiquity up to the present, giving rise to a modern marital presumption of paternity that only makes sense in the context of heterosexual marriage. The Note goes on to examine the paternity establishment theory in light of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, concluding that the theory provides better support for “Prop 8” than the arguments advanced by defense counsel in that case.

Wisconsin v. Yoder is a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that Amish children could not be compelled by the state to attend school past eighth grade, as this would violate their parents’ Free Exercise rights. This Note asserts that Yoder is an obsolete opinion that is ripe for overturning. 

The Supreme Court takes into account four stare decisis factors when reconsidering a prior decision. It considers (1) whether the factual circumstances have evolved in such a manner “as to have robbed the old decision of significant application or justification,” (2) whether the decision is subject to reliance interests that would create “special hardships or inequities” if it were overruled, (3) whether “related principles of law have so far developed as to have left the old decision no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine,” and (4) whether the decision has proven to be unworkable.

This Note holds that the Yoder decision does not hold up under these considerations. It contends that (1) the factual assumptions that underpin Yoder are no longer accurate and that recent changes have undermined the decision, (2) that the Yoder exemption is not subject to reliance interests that would create “special hardships or inequities” if it were overturned, (3) that the Court’s ruling in Employment Division v. Smith has left Yoder a relic of abandoned doctrine, and (4) that the “hybrid-rights” theory that Yoder’s continued applicability rests on is unworkable. 

The Note concludes that because Yoder fails each of the four stare decisis tests, the decision should be overturned.