Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century
704
Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century
704Hardcover
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Overview
Beginning his volume in the ancient and medieval worlds, Geoffrey R. Stone demonstrates how the Founding Fathers, deeply influenced by their philosophical forebears, saw traditional Christianity as an impediment to the pursuit of happiness and to the quest for human progress. Acutely aware of the need to separate politics from the divisive forces of religion, the Founding Fathers crafted a constitution that expressed the fundamental values of the Enlightenment.
Although the Second Great Awakening later came to define America through the lens of evangelical Christianity, nineteenth-century Americans continued to view sex as a matter of private concern, so much so that sexual expression and information about contraception circulated freely, abortions before “quickening” remained legal, and prosecutions for sodomy were almost nonexistent.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reversed such tolerance, however, as charismatic spiritual leaders and barnstorming politicians rejected the values of our nation’s founders. Spurred on by Anthony Comstock, America’s most feared enforcer of morality, new laws were enacted banning pornography, contraception, and abortion, with Comstock proposing that the word “unclean” be branded on the foreheads of homosexuals. Women increasingly lost control of their bodies, and birth control advocates, like Margaret Sanger, were imprisoned for advocating their beliefs. In this new world, abortions were for the first time relegated to dank and dangerous back rooms.
The twentieth century gradually saw the emergence of bitter divisions over issues of sexual “morality” and sexual freedom. Fiercely determined organizations and individuals on both the right and the left wrestled in the domains of politics, religion, public opinion, and the courts to win over the soul of the nation. With its stirring portrayals of Supreme Court justices, Sex and the Constitution reads like a dramatic gazette of the critical cases they decided, ranging from Griswold v. Connecticut (contraception), to Roe v. Wade (abortion), to Obergefell v. Hodges (gay marriage), with Stone providing vivid historical context to the decisions that have come to define who we are as a nation.
Now, though, after the 2016 presidential election, we seem to have taken a huge step backward, with the progress of the last half century suddenly imperiled. No one can predict the extent to which constitutional decisions safeguarding our personal freedoms might soon be eroded, but Sex and the Constitution is more vital now than ever before.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780871404695 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Liveright Publishing Corporation |
| Publication date: | 03/21/2017 |
| Pages: | 704 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.70(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations xix
Acknowledgments xxiii
Prologue xxvii
Part I Ancestors
Chapter 1 The Ancient World: The Triumph of Augustine 3
"The Things of Aphrodite" 5
The Roman Way 9
The Hebraic Tradition 12
Early Christianity 15
Saint Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy 17
Chapter 2 The Power of Revealed Truth 25
"The Badge of Moral Authority" 27
Medieval Carnality 29
Self-Pollution and Fornication 31
Holy Wedlock 33
Concubitus ad non Debitum Sexum 34
"In No Way Superior to the Beasts" 40
Challenging the One True Church 41
Chapter 3 England, the Enlightenment, and "the Age of Eros" 47
Puritans and Libertines 48
Mollies and Tribades 53
Sexual Literature: "Punishable Only in the Spiritual Court" 55
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure 60
"The Age of Eros" 64
Part II Founders
Chapter 4 From Puritanism to the Pursuit of Happiness 73
The Puritan Way 75
"Life's Pleasures" in Eighteenth-Century New England 80
Sex in the Carolinas, the Chesapeake, and the Mid-Atlantic Colonies 82
"An Amazing Variety of Erotica" 83
The City of Brotherly Love 84
We Must Guard Against "Our Own…Licentiousness" 87
Chapter 5 The World of the Framers: A Christian Nation? 89
"Not in an Age of Faith, but in an Age of Reason" 91
Franklin: A "Thorough Deist" 94
Jefferson: A "Deliria of Crazy Imaginations" 95
Adams: "Be Just and Good" 99
Washington: "A Roman Stoic Rather Than a Christian Saint" 101
Paine: "A Villain and an Infidel" 103
"The Civil Morality Necessary to Democracy" 106
Chapter 6 "The Fundamental Maxims of Free Government" 109
"The Care of Each Man's Salvation Belongs Only to Himself" 111
One of the "Glories of the New Constitution" 112
"To Pursue the Common Good" 113
"The People Themselves": The Bill of Rights and the Origins of Judicial Review 115
Unenumerated Rights: The "Immutable Maxims of Reason and Justice" 122
"A Wall of Separation" 124
The End of the Enlightenment 127
Part III Moralists
Chapter 7 The Second Great Awakening 131
"A Spasm Among the Populace" 133
"Moral Militia" 134
Sunday Mail: "To Restore Godly Order" 136
Blasphemy: "A Gross Violation of Decency" 140
The Temperance Movement 143
Slavery: "The Blood of Souls" 144
"Aroused Lust" 145
Freethinkers and Free Love 149
The End of the Second Great Awakening 151
Chapter 8 "Tending to Corrupt the Public Morals": The Meaning of Obscenity 153
"There Ought to Be a Law" 156
Enter Comstock 157
In Defense of the "Canker Worm" 160
Serious Literature and the Standards of the Day 165
Banned in Boston 167
After Comstock 168
Theater and Film 171
"Dirt for Dirt's Sake" 174
The "Evil Stench" of Obscenity 177
Chapter 9 Contraception and Abortion: From the Founding to the 1950s 179
What Would Keep Them Chaste? 181
"The Evil of the Age" 184
The American Medical Association 187
Enter Comstock (Again) 189
Margaret Sanger and the Birth of the Birth Control Movement 194
"God Must Have Sent You to Us" 200
Contraception: A Mortal Sin? 202
Birth Control in the Twenties 204
"Many People Have Changed Their Minds" 206
Chapter 10 "Strange Freaks of Nature" 211
Looking the Other Way 212
"Strange Freaks of Nature" 214
Fairies, Queers, and Trade 220
World War I, Prohibition, and the Twenties 223
Depression 228
Chapter 11 Coming Out 231
The Good War 233
The Lavender Scare 238
"A Particularly Vicious Circle" 243
Alfred Kinsey, Evelyn Hooker, and the American Law Institute 246
Coming Out 250
Stonewalled 252
Backlash 256
Part IV Judges: Sexual Expression and This Constitution
Chapter 12 Obscenity and the First Amendment: "A Corrupting and Debasing" Influence 263
The New Purity Crusade 265
"More Speech, Not Enforced Silence" 267
"Papa Knows Best" 269
"A Great and Mysterious Motive Force" 272
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure Revisited 278
"Dirty Books Day" 280
"Private Thoughts" 282
Redrup 283
"A Magna Carta for Pornographers" 284
Miller and Paris Adult Theatre 287
Chapter 13 The End of Obscenity? 295
The Meese Commission 297
CEOS 298
Shifting Realities 301
"To Advance the Cause of Justice" 303
"The War Is Over and We Have Lost" 308
Porn and the Birth of the Christian Right 311
Chapter 14 Sex and Speech in the Twenty-First Century 313
"Burn the House to Roast the Pig" 314
"Filthy Words" 317
Putting the Burden Where It Belongs 322
"People Should Not Expose Their Private Parts Indiscriminately" 325
Child Pornography 332
Public Museums, Libraries, Schools, and Arts Programs 334
What Have We Wrought? 340
Part V Judges: Reproductive Freedom and The Constitution
Chapter 15 The Constitution and Contraception 351
Getting to Griswold 355
The Right to "Marital Privacy" 360
Whether "To Bear or Beget a Child" 363
Sanger's Triumph 366
Chapter 16 The Road to Roe 369
The American Law Institute, the Thalidomide Scare, and the Dark World of "Back-Alley" Abortions 370
Religion and Politics 374
The Rising Voice of the Women's Movement 376
The Battle for Legislative Legalization 378
Turning to the Courts 382
Roe 385
Reaction 393
To Boldly Go … or Not? 397
Chapter 17 Roe and Beyond 399
Rise of the Christian Right 401
Resisting Roe 406
Refining Roe 409
"Our Worst Fears Have Just Been Realized" 412
Planned Parenthood v. Casey: "I Fear for the Darkness" 415
"Partial-Birth" Abortion 420
"In the Mold of Scalia and Thomas" 422
"Partial-Birth" Abortion Revisited 425
Abortion Today 428
"Undue Burden" and the Future of Abortion 434
Part VI Judges: Sexual Orientation and The Constitution
Chapter 18 "The Gay Moment" 443
"The Plague of the Century" 445
"We Die/They Do Nothing" 447
"We Are Less Than We Ought to Be" 448
"Quit Discriminating Against People Just Because They're Gay" 450
"The Right to Serve the Country They Love" 455
"Going to the Chapel"? 459
Bombshells Across America 463
Defense of Marriage 466
Chapter 19 A Right to "Retain Their Dignity" 469
Bowers: "Homosexual Sodomy Is Immoral" 471
"Judeo-Christian Values … Cannot Provide an Adequate Justification" 474
Romer: "A Bare Desire to Harm" 477
Lawrence: "An Emerging Awareness" 481
The Court and the "Homosexual Agenda" 484
An Occasion for Dancing in the Streets 487
Chapter 20 Same-Sex Marriage and the Constitution 491
The Terms of the Debate 494
"The Right to Marry the Person of One's Choice" 497
"We're Going to Take You Out" 499
The Long and Winding Road to … the Supreme Court 501
Windsor: DOMA's Demise 505
In the Wake of Windsor 508
"The Other Shoe" 511
"The Constitution… Had Nothing to Do with It" 515
So, Who Is Right? 516
Looking to the Future 521
Epilogue 531
Notes 539
Index 639