Academic

Legal Theory Bookworm

By Lawrence Solum

The Legal Theory Bookworm recommends Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Laws in America, 1861-2003 by Jr., William N. Eskridge. Here is a description:

From the Pentagon to the wedding chapel, there are few issues more controversial today than gay rights. As William Eskridge persuasively demonstrates in Dishonorable Passions, there is nothing new about this political and legal obsession. The American colonies and the early states prohibited sodomy as the ?crime against nature,? but rarely punished such conduct if it took place behind closed doors. By the twentieth century, America?s emerging regulatory state targeted ?degenerates? and (later) ?homosexuals.? The witch hunts of the McCarthy era caught very few Communists but ruined the lives of thousands of homosexuals. The nation?s sexual revolution of the 1960s fueled a social movement of people seeking repeal of sodomy laws, but it was not until the Supreme Court?s decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) that private sex between consenting adults was decriminalized. With dramatic stories of both the hunted (Walt Whitman and Margaret Mead) and the hunters (Earl Warren and J. Edgar Hoover), Dishonorable Passions reveals how American sodomy laws affected the lives of both homosexual and heterosexual Americans. Certain to provoke heated debate, Dishonorable Passions is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of sexuality and its regulation in the United States.

And from the reviews:

Despite Eskridge's extensive, important examination of the connection between constitutional law and the politics of morality, one can't help but feel that the type of liberalism Eskridge ultimately advocates needs to sharpen its teeth.--Michael Washburn, SF Chronicle.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on May 17, 2008 (boomark / email).