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Full-Text Articles in Law
Tax Protest, A Homosexual, And Frivolity: A Deconstructionist Meditation, Anthony C. Infanti
Tax Protest, A Homosexual, And Frivolity: A Deconstructionist Meditation, Anthony C. Infanti
Articles
In this contribution to a symposium entitled Out of the Closet and Into the Light: The Legal Issues of Sexual Orientation, I recount and then ponder the story of Robert Mueller. Mueller, a gay man, spent more than a decade protesting the discriminatory treatment of gays and lesbians under the Internal Revenue Code. As a result of his tax protest, Mueller was jailed for more than a year, and then was twice pursued by the IRS for taxes and penalties. In pondering Mueller's story, I consider it both as a telling example of the forcible closeting of gay and lesbian …
Homophobia And The 'Mathew Shepard Effect' In Lawrence V. Texas, Kris Franklin
Homophobia And The 'Mathew Shepard Effect' In Lawrence V. Texas, Kris Franklin
Articles & Chapters
This paper explores the significance of shifting cultural understandings of gay men and lesbians in the Supreme Court's majority, concurring and dissenting opinions in the landmark sodomy case Lawrence v. Texas. By examining the legal authorities in which the case's various opinions are grounded, the article shows that the differing positions taken by the Court reflect radically diverging views on the significance of homosexuality in contemporary culture.
Beyond the rather easy observation that the Supreme Court justices are speaking different languages in the Lawrence opinion, the article contends that the rhetoric of the majority and dissent converge on at least …
Prostitution, Hustling, And Sex Work Law And Policy, Polly Thistlethwaite
Prostitution, Hustling, And Sex Work Law And Policy, Polly Thistlethwaite
Publications and Research
Prostitution, hustling, and sex work are forms of labor, not erotic preferences or identities as are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, but sex workers and queers alike are stigmatized and criminalized for consensual sexual activity. The state – federal, state, and local law enforcement – routinely interferes with certain types of sexual activity. Enforcement of laws regulating sex behavior often varies given the discretion of local police. In her 1989 essay “Thinking Sex,” Gayle Rubin positions sex-for-money, prostitution, with pornography, promiscuous sex, pornography, and homosexual sex in the low status “outer limits” of the contemporary American sex hierarchy; while heterosexual, …