Why Love Leads to Justice Love across the Boundaries [Paperback]

This book tells the stories of notable historical figures whose resistance of patriarchal laws transformed ethical, political, and legal standards.This book tells the stories of historical figures who resisted patriarchal laws around adultery and gay and lesbian sex. Studies of George Eliot, Benjamin Britten, Eleanor Roosevelt, and James Baldwin among others illustrate the power of marginal voices in promoting political and ethical advances in the United States and abroad.This book tells the stories of historical figures who resisted patriarchal laws around adultery and gay and lesbian sex. Studies of George Eliot, Benjamin Britten, Eleanor Roosevelt, and James Baldwin among others illustrate the power of marginal voices in promoting political and ethical advances in the United States and abroad.This book tells the stories of notable historical figures who, by resisting patriarchal laws condemning adultery, gay and lesbian sex, and sex across the boundaries of religion and race, brought about lasting social and political change. Constitutional scholar David A. J. Richards investigates the lives of leading transgressive artists, social critics, and activists including George Eliot, Benjamin Britten, Christopher Isherwood, Bayard Rustin, James Baldwin, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Margaret Mead. Richards shows how ethical empowerment, motivated by love, allowed these figures to resist the injustices of anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, and homophobia, leading to the constitutional condemnation of these political evils in the United States, Britain, and beyond. Love and law thus grow together, and this book shows how and why. Drawing from developmental psychology (including studies of trauma), political theory, the history of social movements, literature, biography, and law, this book will be a thought-provoking tool for anyone interested in civil rights.Introduction: love resists injustice; 1. Breaking the love laws as resistance; 2. Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears: love and lÓ/