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Full-Text Articles in Law
Social Norms And The Legal Regulation Of Marriage, Elizabeth S. Scott
Social Norms And The Legal Regulation Of Marriage, Elizabeth S. Scott
Faculty Scholarship
Americans have interesting and somewhat puzzling attitudes about the state's role in defining and enforcing family obligations. Most people view lasting marriage as an important part of their life plans and take the commitment of marriage very seriously. Yet any legal initiative designed to reinforce that commitment generates controversy and is viewed with suspicion in many quarters. For example, covenant marriage statutes, which offer couples entering marriage the option of undertaking a modest marital commitment, are seen by many observers as coercive and regressive measures rather than ameliorating reforms.
The law tends to reflect – and perhaps contributes to – …
The Eclipse Of Reason: A Rhetorical Reading Of Bowers V. Hardwick, Kendall Thomas
The Eclipse Of Reason: A Rhetorical Reading Of Bowers V. Hardwick, Kendall Thomas
Faculty Scholarship
In a careful and compelling reading of the text of the Supreme Court's opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick, Janet Halley provides a meticulous map of the misprisions by which the Hardwick Court "exploit[s] confusion about what sodomy is in ways that create opportunities for the [judicial] exercise of homophobic power." According to Professor Halley, the duplicitous mechanisms the Hardwick Court marshals in reasoning about sodomy entail a mobilization of two "incommensurable articulations": the idea of the sodomitical act, on the one hand, and that of personal identity, on the other.
Professor Halley rightly insists that an anti-homophobic critique …