This is what we've been talking about around here (we saw and heard him on a video clip)...about how incredibly crazy-making it would be to TRY to learn law from this [supposed] "expert" professor.
Not only does he want to stop gay marriage but now he also wants to outlaw adultery again? This guy is nuts. Just stay out of people's bedrooms. I don't want to hear about your social mores. It is none of your business.
Gay marriage and monogamous heterosexual marriage are by definition, mutually exclusive. Gay marriage is in NO way a threat to monogamous heterosexual marriage.
If they want to outlaw adultery, fine. It is a breach of the marriage contract and could be grounds for divorce, but so should abuse or any other breach of the contract.
Let's talk about what really diminishes marriage, OF ANY KIND, divorce, hasty marriages (returned missionaries engaged within a year), and lack of compromise based on religious views.
Let's calm down though. Gay marriage is a reality and an eventuality and we can be grateful for that. What will be interesting is in about 20 years when the LDS church has contorted its doctrine to allow gay marriage, how everyone including Prof Wardle will say it is an answer to their prayers. The difference this time around is that each individual has already documented their current opinions via Facebook, twitter, etc.
What a failure for a law professor. Instead of giving legal rationale for his position, he rants about the decay of society and other nonsense.
His main point is that marriage is important. Then why is it important to prevent people from marrying?
"Societies in which marriage is weakened and trivialized suffer severe consequences. History shows that the dependent, the young, the weak, and the aged pay a heavy price when marriage is weakened."
Based on his diatribe, we should ban divorce, not limit marriages. Stronger gay families strengthen society and protect gay youth. Divorce is the real problem here, so we should see him try to ban divorce.
Instead, he wants to regulate those who are not married instead of shoring up those who are already married. His logical failures show why his side is losing badly and fast.
You know what weakens marriage? Children basically forced to get married when they shouldn't. Children getting married to the first person they fall in love with. Children getting married when they haven't grown up yet.
She said the prorated cost of the course was well over a thousand dollars without books, and it was the biggest waste of a thousand dollars she could ever imagine. There was occasional comic value [unintended] in what he said.
Like I said below, I never took Wardle for famlaw, but he was fine in conflicts. On the other hand, I had Wilkins for 14th Amendment and, oh, boy. He was a clownshow.
I had a couple classes with him and worked with him on a project. He is very smart and a "nice guy."
As far as his current involvement in the marriage issue, I can't speak to that because I didn't follow the link and haven't read anything he's been involved in for a while but he was fine to work with and he is VERY WELL respected among his peers in the legal profession -- in and especially outside of Utah (which is why he is one of the go-to guys on the marriage issue).
(No, I'm not defending TSCC or his positions on this issue, just answering the question asked).
Well, he will definitely be less respected after his Op-ed piece yesterday. I told dh that Wardle should not have written anything if the best he could gone up with was that. In my opinion, it was very career damaging. Law professors ought to have an ability far in excess of the average person to marshal legal arguments and facts in an organized and persuasive piece of legal writing. He did nothing of the kind. He simply wrote a diatribe regarding his personal biases. Very unimpressive.
The only good thing about it is this: if this piece reflects the best that the "protect traditional marriage" team can come up with, their cause is lost, notwithstanding the temporary SCOTUS stay.
He advocates a position held by a significant percentage of the members of his religion and a significant percentage of Americans, in support of which the only arguments (and evidence) are popular opinion, religious sentiment, tradition, and a 40 year old SCOTUS denial of certiorari. The first two arguments are entirely invalid and the latter two are dubious at best. All other arguments have been destroyed entirely by our country's liberalization of requirements for marriage by opposite-sex couples and the recognition of marriage as a fundamental right. You may be right that Wardle should have just remained silent, but the reality of the legal situation is there are no good arguments to be made in support of the position. Which is why SSM bans continue to lose on every argument other than the Baker v. Nelson punt.
Well, personally, I know of no good legal arguments or facts against SSM. So, from my perspective, writing an op-ed piece when you are basically standing in front of your audience with nothing in your hand but (well, you know the rest), it's best to sit down.
I don't think Wardle is very perceptive since he did not recognize that he had no good facts and no good legal arguments, but proceeded to write his diatribe anyway. Truth be told, lawyers are trained to (and expected to) be able to argue either side of a matter skillfully, at least, if not persuasively. But, he didn't even do that. He just ranted.
No doubt, it will gain him further standing among a few LDS die-hards, but as for gaining him respect from his out-of-state peers, uh . . . no.
I had him. The whole semester was nothing but abortion and gay marriage. We were supposed to be studying family law. He's a severe homophobe and misogynist. Even at the time (as a TBM) I was uncomfortable with the intensity of his disgust for gays and women.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2014 09:56PM by resipsaloquitur.
I could see those topics coming up as part of a family law course, but the whole semester? I'm guessing there were not too many decent divorce lawyers that came out of his class, or lawyers who could help people with adoptions. You know, stuff you go to a family law attorney to get help with.
Those topics really come up more in a constitutional law class. Family law is more adoptions, divorces, child support, alimony. He turned every lecture into a rant about sodomy or baby killing.
True, but there is a family law component of same sex marriage and abortions. Of course someone who is unconditionally opposed to both, without reason, isn't probably going to spend too much time figuring out or discussing the legal dynamics of a gay divorce. Since neither or both parties are male, the courts probably have no idea who to screw over.
And I thought he was pretty good in that class. He's definitely no dummy. To my knowledge, he isn't a conlaw guy. He primarily teaches family law, which I never took. I have heard that he tended to rant in famlaw, but he was a pretty solid conflicts professor.
As a young zoobie I was boofed by Rex Lee's argument against the Equal Rights Amendment. For a while. When I woke up and realized I'd been had I vowed never again.
I see nothing has changed and glaring logical non sequiturs are still popular among Mormon legal beagles.
At least they didn't get a science degree or I would be dealing with them in my own profession. Granted that might have some entertainment value.
I had him for family law! A lot of us left his class after the first couple days. He really did have a mysoginist and homophobic agenda. He would regularly send the class emails with quotes from various people/publications about gay marriage even though we weren't on that as a topic. The quotes were never from peer-reviewed sociological articles, but from like the Baptist Times. He had written our textbook, and he would say "for a different view see" but the articles he wanted us to see we're also written by him! He also told us that what we learned in that class wouldn't be good prep for the bar (or maybe he said just not in Utah, I don't remember). The point is, a lot of other students and I found him to be a joke of a professor. It's so sad, he went to Duke. What a waste of intelligence and capability.