Sex and the Constitution
Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection
A “volume of lasting significance” that illuminates how the clash between sex and religion has defined our nation’s history (Lee C. Bollinger, president, Columbia University).
Lauded for “bringing a bracing and much-needed dose of reality about the Founders’ views of sexuality” (New York Review of Books), Geoffrey R. Stone’s Sex and the Constitution traces the evolution of legal and moral codes that have legislated sexual behavior from America’s earliest days to today’s fractious political climate. This “fascinating and maddening” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) narrative shows how agitators, moralists, and, especially, the justices of the Supreme Court have navigated issues as divisive as abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and contraception. Overturning a raft of contemporary shibboleths, Stone reveals that at the time the Constitution was adopted there were no laws against obscenity or abortion before the midpoint of pregnancy. A pageant of historical characters, including Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson, Anthony Comstock, Margaret Sanger, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, enliven this “commanding synthesis of scholarship” (Publishers Weekly) that dramatically reveals how our laws about sex, religion, and morality reflect the cultural schisms that have cleaved our nation from its founding.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Constitutional scholar Stone (Perilous Times) explores how the United States has regulated human sexuality from the colonial period to the present day. Beginning with a brief discussion of attitudes toward sexuality in the ancient world, medieval Europe, England, and Puritan New England, the author then outlines the Enlightenment-era concerns regarding government, religion, and individual freedom that shaped the U.S. constitutional law, and the lasting influence of the Second Great Awakening on morality laws. After providing this background, the work combines a thematic and roughly chronological survey of Christian attitudes toward, and U.S. legal treatment of, three areas of human sexuality: sexual speech and obscenity, abortion and contraception, and homosexual acts and identity. This title is a commanding synthesis of scholarship on over two centuries of American legal debate and practice regarding these issues, and would work well as the core text for a course of the subject. Less developed is the history of Christian attitudes regarding sexuality, with the work repeatedly situating American Christianity in opposition to more tolerant secular values. The work also lacks any substantive discussion of non-Christian religious approaches to sexuality and liberty. Despite these limitations, Stone's analysis is highly recommended for anyone seeking an introduction to the history of U.S. law and sexual expression.
