Katherine K. Young is a Canadian religious studies professor at McGill University.[1]
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She was awarded her M.A. from the University of Chicago and her Ph.D. from McGill University, for research on the history of religions, specializing in Hinduism. After completing her doctorate Young remained at McGill as a faculty member where she continues to teach.
She has periodically studied and done research in India. She has published on religion in South India, women in Hinduism and on ethics.,[2] She has been proferred as an expert in Perry v. Schwarzenegger by litigants who intervened in the case to defend a California constitutional amendment stripping same-sex couples of the right to marry. Just before the trial, the defendant intervenors against gay marriage removed her as a witness, but the trial court judge allowed her prior videotaped deposition to be entered into evidence by the marriage-equality plaintiffs.
In Varnum v. Brien Iowa's Polk County District Court rejected Young's testimony concerning the purported social effects of recognizing same-sex marriages. Judge Robert Hanson rejected the supposed "expert" testimony of Dr. Young and stated that her testimony would be inadmissible at trial, on the basis that her opinions were "not based on observation supported by scientific methodology or... on empirical research in any sense."[3]