Tey Meadow and Judith Stacey

Tey Meadow is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at New York University. Her work explores the relationship between the law, social gender norms and family politics. Her dissertation looks at the way state institutions respond to challenges to legal gender classification schemes. Meadow holds a Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College and a Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law.

Judith Stacey is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and Professor of Sociology at New York University. Her research examines changes in family, sexuality and society, with particular emphasis on the politics of family diversity. Her publications include In the Name of The Family: Rethinking Family Values in the Postmodern Age; Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth Century America; and Patriarchy and Socialist Revolution in China, and scores of articles including the influential, “(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?” co-authored with Timothy Biblarz. In addition to lecturing widely in the U.S. and abroad, she served as an expert witness in the Canadian same-sex marriage case and in gay adoption and family rights cases in the U.S.. A frequent public commentator on family change and politics, Dr. Stacey was one of the founders of the Council on Contemporary Families, a group committed to public education on family research.

Posts by Tey Meadow and Judith Stacey:

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

The race to marriage

On April 3, 2008, state authorities raided a polygamous compound in Eldorado, Texas founded by Warren Jeffs, the now imprisoned leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a breakaway Mormon sect. Six weeks later, on May 15, the California Supreme Court invalidated the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The proximity of these two state interventions invites reflection on the rhetoric and politics of marital diversity in the United States. Most analysis to date understandably focuses on the contrasting visions of sexual and gender morality that polygamy and gay marriage represent. Frequently overlooked, however, are the deep racial codings of marital politics in the U.S., which same-sex marriage advocates too often unwittingly reinforce. We believe that acknowledging these repressed meanings can help frame a more inclusive and inspiring family politics. [...]

Read the rest of The race to marriage.

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