Today the President of the United States explicitly endorsed the idea that gay couples and their families should have the freedom to marry. He had already done so as a practical matter by refusing to defend the constitutionality of what he carefully mislabelled the “Defense Against Marriage Act” and by publicly opposing state constitutional amendments against marriage. But in the past […]
Author Archive | Dale Carpenter
Speaking This Week
I’ll be speaking about my new book, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas, this Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. Registration is $20 for non-members, $8 for members, and $7 for students. For more details and registration, see here.
Speaking Engagements This Week
By Dale Carpenter on April 10, 2012 12:28 pm in Flagrant Conduct: Lawrence v. Texas, Gay Rights, Sexual Conduct Restrictions, Sexual Orientation, Supreme Court
This week I’ll be discussing my new book, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas, at two different venues. On Thursday, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice will sponsor a speech at Harvard Law School from 5:30-7:00 p.m. Details are available here. On Friday evening at 7:00 p.m., I’ll be speaking […]
NYT Sunday Book Review of “Flagrant Conduct”
By Dale Carpenter on March 18, 2012 9:51 pm in Flagrant Conduct: Lawrence v. Texas, Gay Rights, Sexual Orientation
In today’s Times Book Review section, Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian David Oshinsky reviews my new book, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas. I promise not to make a habit of posting these notices, but I’m quite honored by his review, as I have been by several other recent reactions to the book.
Review of Flagrant Conduct in the New York Review of Books
By Dale Carpenter on March 16, 2012 10:01 am in Civil Rights, Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Flagrant Conduct: Lawrence v. Texas, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Sexual Orientation
Georgetown Law Professor David Cole has a terrific review of my new book, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas (Norton) in the April 5 issue of the NYRB. Cole presents the basic background, including what likely happened the night John Lawrence and Tyron Garner were arrested for the crime of “Homosexual Conduct,” a Texas law that forbade […]
Speaking Engagements for Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas
By Dale Carpenter on March 13, 2012 6:49 pm in Civil Rights, Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Flagrant Conduct: Lawrence v. Texas, Gay Rights, Sexual Orientation
Over the next couple of months I will be on an active speaking tour for my new book, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas, which has just been published by W.W. Norton & Co. Of perhaps greatest interest to readers of this blog are a couple of events coming up soon. This Friday, March 16, […]
Washington State Governor to Sign SSM Bill at 11:30 PST
You can watch the signing here. The legislative success was the result, as in New York, of persuading a handful of Republicans and almost all Democratic state legislators to support marriage for same-sex couples. It’s considered very likely that gay-marriage opponents will force a popular vote on this issue this November. Same-sex couples won’t be […]
Proposition 8 Through the Prism of Lawrence v. Texas
The Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Perry v. Brown pushes hard to apply Romer v. Evans to the Prop 8 litigation. The panel noted that the grant of full marital and parental rights to same-sex couples, while simultaneously denying them the word “marriage,” excised gay couples and their children with “surgical precision.” But such narrowness was not the problem in Romer; it […]
More on Minimalism and Maximilism in the Prop 8 Case
I agree with some of what Ilya writes in response to my post on the Ninth Circuit’s Prop 8 decision and judicial minimalism. As I noted in that post, the effect of striking down Prop 8 is certainly not small. California would be “by far the biggest prize” for same-sex marriage advocates. Of course, it could have been written in a […]
Spanking Judges as a Rational Basis for Prop 8
By Dale Carpenter on February 11, 2012 1:36 am in Equal Protection, Same-Sex Marriage, Sexual Orientation
In the ongoing search for a constitutionally minimal justification for Prop 8, Orin proposes a creative one — repudiating activist judges independent of the substantive merits of the amendment: One rational reason to support a symbolic law like Prop 8 would be to issue a rebuke to the California Supreme Court that issued that decision, with […]
Reinhardt’s Minimalism, Lowering the Stakes
In contrast to Judge Walker’s maximalist opinion striking down Prop 8, it’s generally accepted that Judge Reinhardt’s opinion was minimalist. There’s a commonsense way in which the opinion is not at all minimalist. It reverses the results of a plebiscite, which followed the expenditure of $80 million and the mobilization of millions of voters. It brings […]
Place Your Bets
The Ninth Circuit’s opinion on the constitutionality of Prop 8 is expected tomorrow. Chris Geidner summarizes the issues the panel may address: The long anticipated appeals court ruling is expected to address three issues: (1) whether former U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker should have recused himself from hearing the case because he is gay and had […]
Marriage For Me But Not For Thee
John Corvino, a philosophy professor, notes a potential complication for Newt Gingrich’s claim that he has repented, namely, that he continues to commit adultery in the form of remarriage: Gingrich speaks with a straight face about the sanctity of “one man, one woman” marriage. . . His defenders from the religious right . . . claim that Jesus offers forgiveness and redemption […]
Santorum the Sophist
Conor Friedersdorf has a pretty good take-down of Rick Santorum’s reasons for opposing same-sex marriage. Friedersdorf evidently supports same-sex marriage for culturally conservative reasons (praising marriage and its value to families, wanting to preserve it). Santorum’s argument against same-sex marriage, on the other hand, is little more than an assertion of authority and definition. Santorum writes: A […]
John Lawrence, of Lawrence v. Texas, Has Died
Of natural causes. He was 68 years old. R.I.P.