Gaylaw : Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet

this Book Provides A Comprehensive Analysis Of The Legal Issues Concerning Gender And Sexual Nonconformity In The United States. Part One, Which Covers The Years From The Post-civil War Period To The 1980s, Is A History Of State Efforts To Discipline And Punish The Behavior Of Homosexuals And Other People Considered To Be Deviant. During This Period Such People Could Get By Only At The Cost Of Suppressing Their Most Basic Feelings And Emotions. Part Two Addresses Contemporary Issues. Although It Is No Longer Illegal To Be Openly Gay In America, Homosexuals Still Suffer From State Discrimination In The Military And In Other Realms, And Private Discrimination And Violence Against Gays Is Prevalent. William Eskridge Presents A Rigorously Argued Case For The Sexualization Of The First Amendment, Showing Why, For Example, Same-sex Ceremonies And Intimacy Should Be Considered Expressive Conduct Deserving The Protection Of The Courts. The Author Draws On Legal Reasoning, Sociological Studies, And History To Develop An Effective Response To The Arguments Made In Defense Of The Military Ban. The Concluding Part Of The Book Locates The Author's Legal Arguments Within The Larger Currents Of Liberal Theory And Integrates Them Into A General Stance Toward Freedom, Gender Equality, And Religious Pluralism. patrick Mcglone gaylaw Is A Panoramic Exploration Of The Many Issues That Are Now Part Of Our Public Discourse About The Place Of Homosexuals In American Society. Eskridge Is A Leading Gaylegal Scholar, And This Book Is A Thoughtful, Insightful Analysis Not Only Of The Country's Changing Mind-set About Regulating Same-sex Attraction, But Also Of The Constitutional Bases For Protecting Sexual Intimacy From State Intrusion. He Draws On Many Sources, And More Than One-quarter Of The Book Comprises Supporting Appendixes And Endnotes. He Has Assembled Comprehensive Tables Of Statutory Enactments And Statistics About Criminal Arrests, Military Discharges, And Other Governmental Enforcement Efforts...eskridge's Book Is A Valuable Contribution To The Dialogue On This And A Host Of Other Questions Our Society Will Grapple With As The Closet Crumples And Gay People Press For Equal Standing In The Eyes Of The Law. "Gaylaw is the ongoing history of state rules relating to gender and sexual nonconformity. For most of American history, there was no state regulation of 'gay' people -- people not conforming to rigid sexual and gender roles -- because the categories of sexuality and gender were not well-conceptualized until after the Civil War. Once the state was alerted to gender and sexual nonconformity as a prominent social phenomenon, the state sought to discourage the nonconformity, and ultimately to erase the nonconformers. Since 1969, the law's hostility to gay people has relented, and today the law sometimes protects gay people against private violence and discrimination"."Gaylaw is, also, reconceiving law from a more gay-friendly or-neutral perspective. Although it is not illegal to be gay in the United States, the law continues to treat gay people as second-class citizens. The admitted lesbian cannot serve in the United States armed forces, cannot legally marry the woman she loves, commits a felony or a misdemeanor every time she has oral sex if this occurs in any of nineteen states, is subject to male violence and rape that the state will usually not investigate, in most jurisdictions has no legal remedy when she is fired from her job because her employer hates lesbians, and is subject to state confiscation of her biological children and in some states cannot adopt children. This formal inequality is morally wrong and politically imprudent. Gaylaw insists that it be changed and shows how change is directed or supported by existing legal principles and precedents". Annotation This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal issues concerning gender and sexual nonconformity in the United States. Part One, which covers the years from the post-Civil War period to the 1980s, is a history of state efforts to discipline and punish the behavior of homosexuals and other people considered to be deviant. During this period such people could get by only at the cost of suppressing their most basic feelings and emotions. Part Two addresses contemporary issues. Although it is no longer illegal to be openly gay in America, homosexuals still suffer from state discrimination in the military and in other realms, and private discrimination and violence against gays is prevalent. William Eskridge presents a rigorously argued case for the "sexualization" of the First Amendment, showing why, for example, same-sex ceremonies and intimacy should be considered "expressive conduct" deserving the protection of the courts. The author draws on legal reasoning, sociological studies, and history to develop an effective response to the arguments made in defense of the military ban. The concluding part of the book locates the author's legal arguments within the larger currents of liberal theory and integrates them into a general stance toward freedom, gender equality, and religious pluralism This text provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal issues concerning gender and sexual nonconformity in the United States. Part one, which covers the years from the post-Civil War to the 1980s, is a history of state efforts to discipline and punish the behaviour of homosexuals and other people considered to be deviant. during this period such people could get by only at the cost of suppressing their most basic feelings and emotions. Part two addresses contemporary issues. although it is no longer illegal to be openly gay in America, homosexuals still suffer from state discrimination in the military and in other realms, and private discrimination and violence against gays is prevalent. The author presents a rigorously argued case for the "sexualization" of the First Amendment, showing why, for example, same-sex ceremonies and intimacy should be considered "expressive conduct" deserving the protection of the courts.;He draws on legal reasoning, sociological studies, and history to develop an effective response to the arguments made in defense of the military ban. The concluding part of the book locales the author's legal arguments within the larger currents of liberal theory and integrates them into a general stance toward freedom, gender equality, and religious pluralism "American regulation of sexual variation has been responsive to multiple anxieties - about disgusting acts, gender deviation, and predatory sexuality. Gaylaw authoritatively shows how such legal regulation has evolved in the United States throughout the last century, contributing to the construction of homosexuality as a totalizing identity trait and to the phenomenon of the closet, initially a hiding place for gay people, now best viewed as an exclusion from citizenship." "Gaylaw not only questions the remnants of the old regime of compulsory heterosexuality, but offers ideas about public law in a post-closet, indeed post-liberal, era."--BOOK JACKET. This text provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal issues concerning gender and sexual nonconformity in the United States. The text is split into three parts covering the post-Civil war period to the 1980s, contemporary issues and legal arguments.