The Texas challenge raises two very important constitutional issues, privacy and equal protection. The privacy argument makes the same point my students made: government doesn?t belong in anyone?s bedroom. Sodomy statutes, like statutes against fornication or laws forbidding the use of birth control, are simply not within the proper power of the legislature. If the Justices rule on the basis of privacy, overturning the infamous Bowers v. Hardwick decision, then all sodomy statutes will be invalid.
Continue reading “Texas Morality”
In Over Our Heads
I was piling the food from my grocery cart onto the cashier?s conveyor when the headline caught my eye; one of the tabloids next to the checkout announced ?Now It Can Be Told: Saddaam and Osama?s Gay Wedding!? Beneath the headline was a ?photograph? of Saddaam Hussain in a suit, walking down the aisle with Osama Bin Ladin, tastefully attired in a long, white bridal gown.
Continue reading “In Over Our Heads”
Using Restraints: The Legal Context of High Risk Interventions
The treatment of children by mental health professionals–particularly in an institutional setting–implicates three sets of important, and frequently competing, interests.
Continue reading “Using Restraints: The Legal Context of High Risk Interventions”
Religious Paradigms and the Rule of Law: Thinking in Red and Blue
While lawyers, political scientists and others recognize the more explicitly religious components of America?s current polarization, we fail to appreciate the extent to which conflicting policy preferences are rooted in religiously-shaped normative frameworks. Much like the blind men and the elephant, we encounter different parts of the animal. We see a tree, a wall, a snake?but we fail to apprehend the size, shape and power of the whole elephant.
Continue reading “Religious Paradigms and the Rule of Law: Thinking in Red and Blue”
Flip-Flopping Along
A consistent adherence to one’s values–a demonstrated pattern of acting in accordance with core beliefs–is a highly regarded indicator of character, as it should be. But what does genuine consistency look like? If Emerson was right, and "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," how do we tell the difference between someone who has no strong beliefs and someone who is "foolishly consistent?"someone who doesn’t understand why principles may apply differently under different sets of facts?
Continue reading “Flip-Flopping Along”