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Academic

: Legal Theory Blog

Ball on Morality & LGBT Rights

By Lawrence Solum

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Carlos A. Ball (Rutgers University School of Law (Newark)) has posted Gay is Good: Morality and the LGBT Rights Movement (New York University Review of Law & Social Change, Vol. 34, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The purposes of this Essay are threefold. The first is to explain why it is that LGBT activists have traditionally shied away from making explicitly moral arguments in support of their positions. The second is to explore the impact of Lawrence v. Texas on the appropriate relationship between legal regulations of LGBT-related matters and morality. And the third is to suggest two categories of moral arguments ? one grounded in constitutional values and the other in empirical evidence ? that gay rights supporters should consider using in seeking to advance the interests of LGBT people. If I might be permitted an observation, the normative case for rights must always be based on considerations of morality (in the broad sense). Human rights arguments, efficiency arguments, deontological arguments, aretaic arguments, and arguments of constitutional theory are all moral arguments. The notion that arguments of morality are limited to concerns related to traditional moralities rooted in particular religious or cultural traditions is itself a controversial position in moral theory.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on May 03, 2010 (boomark / email).