Legal Research and Writing

Writing Assignments #7&8: Memorandum on same-sex marriage
Library Assignment #3
Outline and thesis due: Tuesday, April 24; Research due Thursday, April 26
Rough draft due: Tuesday, May 1; Final draft due: Thursday, May 3

Based on the success of Baker v. Vermont, eight gay couples in Massachusetts filed a suit challenging the state’s prohibition on their ability to marry. On November 18, 2003, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the benefits of civil marriage. Beginning on May 17, 2004, same-sex couples were issued marriage licenses. Since then, over 8,000 same-sex couples have married in Massachusetts. Opponants of same-sex marriage collected 170,000 signatures on a petition to put a proposed amendment to the Massachusetts consitution on the 2008 ballot., The amendment would define marriage as between “one man and one woman,” Before the proposed amendment is put on the ballot, it must be approved by 25% of Massachusetts legislators in two successive legislative sessions. On January 2, 2007, the legislature passed the amendment by a vote of 62-138; it must be voted on by the legislature one more time in 2007. If a majority of voters approve the amendment, then there will be no more same-sex marriages in Massachusetts.

For this assignment, you will write a memorandum to your state representative explaining your position on gay marriage and making an argument how you think the legislaor should vote when it comes up again. You can find out who your representative is at http://www.mass.gov/legis/citytown.htm. You will need to find out what your representative’s position is by calling or emailing his/her office. If you are not a resident of Massachusetts, address your memorandum to Governor Romney.

Your memorandum should be 5-6 pages long. Use the Memorandum format on page 10 of this course packet. For grading purposes, this assignment counts double. Please note that the third library assignment is incorporated in this memorandum. Use the same format as you did for the social host liability memorandum.

In your memorandum, you will need to cover the following issues:

Give your opinion of gay marriage and explain why you agree or disagree with your legislator’s position on the proposed amendment. You’ll need to take a clear position in this memo.
Discuss the legal issues and policy issues related to this topic.
Using either Lexis-Nexis or Legaltrac, find two articles to support your position. Be sure to acknowledge all sources you consult for your memorandum. It is all right to use newspaper articles for this assignment.

This is not a formal research paper. As with the memorandum you wrote on field sobriety tests, think about who your audience is. You want to write in a style that makes a compelling argument but is accessible to your reader. You probably won’t want to use formal footnotes, but you do need include the necessary information to look up any references you have. We will talk in class about how to do this.

Do not plagiarize. Do not do anything that has even the appearance of plagiarism or any other form of academic dishonesty. If you have any questions at all about what constitutes plagiarism or cheating, talk to one of the instructors. Whenever you take someone else’s language or ideas, you must give credit to that author. This includes anything you may find on the Internet. See p. 17 for examples of plagiarism.

As with the last assignment, you must hand in an outline and citations to the articles you plan to use to support your argument. We will not accept your formal draft if we have not seen your outline and research first.