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.
Archive | Gay Rights
My Upcoming Appearance on the Bob Zadek Show, Discussing the Gay Marriage Litigation
Tommorrow from noon to 1 PM Pacific time (3-4 Eastern), I will be appearing on Bob Zadek’s talk radio show in San Francisco to talk about the gay marriage litigation and other related issues. Zadek is a libertarian political commentator and lawyer who hosts a weekly talk show devoted to various political and legal issues. […]
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 […]
Heather Gerken’s Progressive Defense of Federalism
By Ilya Somin on March 13, 2012 9:11 pm in Federalism, Gay Rights, Racial Discrimination, Racism, Voting With Your Feet
Yale Law Professor Heather Gerken, a prominent federalism scholar, has an interesting article in Democracy urging her fellow liberals to take a more favorable view of federalism: Progressives are deeply skeptical of federalism, and with good reason. States’ rights have been invoked to defend some of the most despicable institutions in American history, most notably […]
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, […]
Viewpoint Discrimination in K-12 School Library Filtering
By Eugene Volokh on February 16, 2012 5:21 pm in Cyberspace Law, Freedom of Speech at K-12 Schools, Freedom to Gather Information, Gay Rights, Sexual Orientation
As I’ve said before, the Supreme Court has never decided whether K-12 schools may remove books from school libraries based on their viewpoints, or may filter out Web sites based on their viewpoints. The Court’s cases dealing with this question, Board of Ed. v. Pico and U.S. v. American Library Ass’n were badly splintered and […]
More on Gay Marriage Bans and Judicial Minimalism
By Ilya Somin on February 12, 2012 5:57 am in Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Same-Sex Marriage, Sex Discrimination, Sexual Orientation
In a thoughtful recent post, co-blogger Dale Carpenter takes issue with my argument that bans on same-sex marriage are best attacked on the grounds that they are unconstitutional sex discrimination, and parts of my post suggesting that a minimalist strategy in the gay marriage litigation is not likely to work. Dale is one of the […]
Sex Discrimination and Tradition
By Ilya Somin on February 10, 2012 1:43 pm in Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Same-Sex Marriage, Sex Discrimination
In a recent post, co-blogger David Bernstein partially rejects my argument that a ban on same-sex marriage qualifies as sex discrimination. As David puts it: On the one hand, I agree with Ilya that bans on same-sex marriage could be described as sex discrimination. On the other hand, from opponents’ perspective, the point is that […]
On Same Sex Marriage and “Sex Discrimination”
By David Bernstein on February 10, 2012 8:16 am in Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Same-Sex Marriage, Sex Discrimination
On the one hand, I agree with Ilya that bans on same-sex marriage could be described as sex discrimination. On the other hand, from opponents’ perspective, the point is that “marriage” has been defined for several thousand years in Judeo-Christian culture as between a man and a woman, and retaining that definition is not sex […]
Judicial Minimalism and Same-Sex Marriage
By Ilya Somin on February 10, 2012 12:52 am in Constitutional Law, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Same-Sex Marriage, Sex Discrimination
Co-blogger Dale Carpenter argues that Judge Stephen Reinhardt’s recent decision striking down the California gay marriage ban is an attempt at “judicial minimalism” intended to make the outcome acceptable to a Supreme Court that is unlikely to rule that the Constitution requires nation-wide recognition of same-sex marriage. By “lowering the stakes,” Dale argues, Reinhardt gives […]
Why Same-Sex Marriage Bans Qualify as Sex Discrimination
By Ilya Somin on February 7, 2012 8:35 pm in Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Originalism, Same-Sex Marriage, Sex Discrimination
Today’s Ninth Circuit decision striking down California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage is unpersuasive because it claims that the law fails to meet even minimal “rational basis” scrutiny. Eugene Volokh does a good job of explaining why. But there is an alternative constitutional rationale for striking down same-sex marriage bans that avoids this problem. Proposition […]
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 […]
Rick Santorum’s Army of Celibates
By Ilya Somin on January 5, 2012 12:27 am in Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT), Gay Rights, War and Armed Conflict
Since Rick Santorum’s unexpected success, his extreme social conservatism has gotten a lot of attention. In some cases, it goes beyond what even most conservative Republicans would be willing to support. My personal favorite extreme Santorum quote hasn’t yet gotten as much play as some of the others. In a September GOP debate, Santorum responded […]
John Lawrence, of Lawrence v. Texas, Has Died
Of natural causes. He was 68 years old. R.I.P.
Frank Kameny, R.I.P.
Frank Kameny, whose name was practically a synonym for pioneering gay civil-rights leadership, died today at his home in Washington, D.C., at the age of 86. One news account summarized some of his work: Kameny’s beginnings in advocacy work came after he was fired from his job as an astronomer for the Army Map Service […]