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Gay And Lesbian Applicants To The Bar: Even Lord Devlin Could Not Defend Exclusion, Joel J. Finer
Gay And Lesbian Applicants To The Bar: Even Lord Devlin Could Not Defend Exclusion, Joel J. Finer
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
In 1957, the publication of a report to Parliament, the Wolfenden Report, which recommended the repeal of laws criminalizing private homosexual conduct between consenting adults, sparked an intensely debated controversy in political philosophy and jurisprudence. The issue: is society justified in criminalizing behavior which, although causing no secular harm, transgresses widely held moral values? The principal proponent of morals legislation was Lord Patrick Devlin, who responded to the Wolfenden recommendation with a paper disputing the report's premises--that criminal law had no proper business punishing private immorality.Oxford Professor of Jurisprudence H.L.A. Hart, a philosophical successor to the libertarianism of John Stuart …
Brief Against Homophobia At The Bar: To Law School Dean-Mid 1960s, Joel J. Finer
Brief Against Homophobia At The Bar: To Law School Dean-Mid 1960s, Joel J. Finer
Law Faculty Articles and Essays
In the mid-1960s, the author addressed the following "brief" to the Dean of a major law school on behalf of a law student, successfully urging that the Dean not report the student's homosexual activities to the state Bar committee which screened applicants for "good moral character." My own view, to be presently elaborated, is that to deprive a law student of the well-earned fruits of his labor on the basis of psychiatric findings that he might, at some future time commit a homosexual act that might become public and might merely embarrass a client, employer or associate, would manifest gross …