Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century [Hardcover]

There has never been a book like Writing confidently and expertly about several centuries of American laws regulating sex, Stone shows that the line between moral and religious reasoning was almost always illusory. . . . A comprehensive history and analysis of our law's fitful and frequently schizophrenic treatment of sex&A story that is both fascinating and maddening&This book brings us all the way up to the controversies of our day (including gay marriage) and offers tantalizing glimpses of some of the legal battles that lie ahead&Those interested in adding historical context to their thinking about these hot button issues would be well-advised to add Stone's book to their summer reading list. This masterpiece is the rarest of combinations: a page-turner that is also a magisterial font of wisdom. This fascinating account of how sexual mores, religion, and law have intersected ormore oftencollided throughout American history is really about even more than that. Its about the role of law in maintaining a civil society in a diverse twenty-first-century America, and a call to the Supreme Court to step up to the challenge. A volume of lasting significance that quickly will become essential reading not only for law students and scholars but for all who want to better understand sweeping cultural transformations that continue to roil society. Magnificent and monumentala stunning blend of dispassionate analysis and deep moral conviction. Think that the United States was born as a Christian nation? Think again. A superb examination of the history of how the law has regulated sexual behavior and sexual expression from the ancient world to today. Sex, which has simultaneously inspired and eluded regulation through the ages, has been the focus of many of our greatest constitutional controversies. No one is better suited than the always erudite and lucid Geoffrey Stone to provide the panoramic treatment that the subject deserves. Unless you are the rare person who halS.