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Justice Scalia As A Modern Lord Devlin: Animus And Civil Burdens In Romer V. Evans, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the legal world was captivated by an ongoing debate between two of England's most respected jurists regarding whether and to what extent morality should be reflected in the law. The debate was instigated by the publication of the Wolfenden Report, a study presented to Parliament as it considered whether to repeal certain antisodomy laws in Great Britain. Lord Patrick Devlin, then a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and later elevated to the House of Lords, Britain's highest court, opposed the conclusions contained in the Wolfenden Report and supported the continuation of the antisodomy …