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Michigan Law Review

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Articles 31 - 54 of 54

Full-Text Articles in Sexuality and the Law

Finding Gold In The Rainbow Rights Movement, Shayna S. Cook May 2001

Finding Gold In The Rainbow Rights Movement, Shayna S. Cook

Michigan Law Review

In her history of the past fifty years of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement, Patricia Cain recounts the litigation successes and failures that contributed to the legal status of gays and lesbians in the Untied States today. Clearly an insider who has marched with the movement every step of the way, Cain provides a comprehensive account of all fronts of the battle in state and federal courts since 1950. But while Rainbow Rights serves as a good primer on the legal challenges and the key themes uniting them, the book reads like an account of a struggle ending …


Science Gone Astray: Evolution And Rape, Elisabeth A. Lloyd May 2001

Science Gone Astray: Evolution And Rape, Elisabeth A. Lloyd

Michigan Law Review

Throughout A Natural History of Rape, coauthors Randy Thomhill and Craig Palmer resort to what is known among philosophers of science as "The Galileo Defense," which amounts to the following claim: I am telling the Truth and doing excellent science, but because of ideology and ignorance, I am being persecuted. The authors have repeated and elaborated upon this defense during the si:lable media flurry accompanying the book's publication in February 2000. Now, history has accepted this defense from Galileo. But in order for it to work for Thornhill and Palmer, of course, they must be telling the Truth and doing …


History Unbecoming, Becoming History, Toni M. Massaro Jan 2000

History Unbecoming, Becoming History, Toni M. Massaro

Michigan Law Review

The last few decades have seen a torrent of legal commentary supporting gay equality and attacking the punishment, failure to protect, and refusal to affirm gay conduct and identity. William Eskridge, a prominent voice in this fin-de-siecle literature, now draws together and expands on his previous work in Gaylaw: Challenging the Apartheid of the Closet. Though far more successful in shaping the uses of the past than in showing the way to the future, the book instructs even where it fails. It augurs a century that could well witness the end of official discrimination against gay individuals, and the relegation …


Word Games, War Games, Diane H. Mazur Jan 2000

Word Games, War Games, Diane H. Mazur

Michigan Law Review

In 1993, the country's interest in the issue of military service by gay citizens escalated to a level that can only be described as a national obsession, and "obsession" is by no means too strong a term. The subject of gay servicemembers was debated within all three branches of government, all ranks of the military, and all walks of civilian life.1 The issue of military service by gay citizens became a line in the sand, a cultural standoff on issues as sensitive and disparate as sexuality, patriotism, civil rights, and civic obligation. Janet Halley2 returns to that time of obsession …


The Erotics Of Torts, Carol Sanger May 1998

The Erotics Of Torts, Carol Sanger

Michigan Law Review

"What kind of feminist would be accused of sexual harassment?" asks Jane Gallop (p. 1). Gallop quickly provides her own challenging answer: "the sort of feminist . . . that . . . do[es] not respect the line between the intellectual and the sexual" (p. 12)." Gallop is firm and unrepentant about not respecting this line: "I sexualize the atmosphere in which I work. When sexual harassment is defined as the introduction of sex into professional relations, it becomes quite possible to be both a feminist and a sexual harasser" (p. 11). Figuring out what this means - and what …


Is Amendment 2 Really A Bill Of Attainder? Some Questions About Professor Amar's Analysis Of Romer, Roderick M. Hills Jr. Oct 1996

Is Amendment 2 Really A Bill Of Attainder? Some Questions About Professor Amar's Analysis Of Romer, Roderick M. Hills Jr.

Michigan Law Review

As I first discovered as a law student in Professor Amar's classes on legal history and federal courts, it is generally an intellectual treat to listen to Professor Amar's legal analysis, even when he is attacking one's own arguments. So my pleasure at reading Professor Amar's analysis of the Court's decision in Romer v. Evans was only partly dampened by his disapproval of the respondents' brief that I and other plaintiffs' counsel filed with the Court. According to Amar, this respondents' brief provided the Court with "so little help" that it had to rely on an entirely different and much …


Attainder And Amendment 2: Romer's Rightness, Akhil Reed Amar Oct 1996

Attainder And Amendment 2: Romer's Rightness, Akhil Reed Amar

Michigan Law Review

Call me silly. In fact, call me terminally silly. For despite Justice Scalia's remarkably confident claim, I believe, and shall try to prove below, that the Romer Court majority opinion invalidating Colorado's Amendment 2 was right both in form and in substance, both logically and sociologically. I stress "form" and "logic" at the outset because I share Justice Scalia's belief in the importance of these things in constitutional adjudication. I also share his commitment to constitutional text, history, and structure, and his suspicion of "free-form" constitutionalism. And so I shall highlight the text, history, and spirit of a constitutional clause …


Constitutional Misconceptions, Radhika Rao May 1995

Constitutional Misconceptions, Radhika Rao

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Children of Choice: Freedom and the New Reproductive Technologies by John A. Robertson


Caste And The Civil Rights Laws: From Jim Crow To Same-Sex Marriages, Richard A. Epstein Aug 1994

Caste And The Civil Rights Laws: From Jim Crow To Same-Sex Marriages, Richard A. Epstein

Michigan Law Review

In this essay I address the notion of caste in two separate contexts: in the traditional disputes over race and sex, and in the more modem disputes over sexual orientation. In both cases the idea of caste and its kindred notions of subordination and hierarchy are used to justify massive forms of government intervention. In all cases I think that these arguments are incorrect. In their place, I argue that the idea of caste should be confined to categories of formal, or legal, distinctions between persons before the law. This more limited notion of caste supplies no justification for the …


Poised At The Threshold: Sexual Orientation, Law, And The Law School Curriculum In The Nineties, Jane S. Schacter May 1994

Poised At The Threshold: Sexual Orientation, Law, And The Law School Curriculum In The Nineties, Jane S. Schacter

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Law by William B. Rubenstein


Incompletely Reasoned Sex: A Review Of Posner's Somewhat Misleading Guide To The Economic Analysis Of Sex And Family Law, Martin Zelder May 1993

Incompletely Reasoned Sex: A Review Of Posner's Somewhat Misleading Guide To The Economic Analysis Of Sex And Family Law, Martin Zelder

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Sex and Reason by Richard A. Posner


The Case Of The Amorous Defendant: Criticizing Absolute Stare Decisis For Statutory Cases, William N. Eskridge Jr. Aug 1990

The Case Of The Amorous Defendant: Criticizing Absolute Stare Decisis For Statutory Cases, William N. Eskridge Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Earlier in this the first year of the new millennium, Professor Larry Marshall was appointed Chief Justice of the United States. The first important case coming before the Marshall Court involved the government's prosecution of Frankly Amorous under the White Slave Traffic Act of June 25, 1910 (the Mann Act), as amended. Defendant Amorous was a law student in Virginia who paid for the airplane ticket of his female lover to travel from North Carolina to Virginia for the admitted purpose of having extramarital sexual relations. The U.S. Attorney prosecuted Amorous for violating the Mann Act, which criminalizes the knowing …


Contempt Of Congress: A Reply To The Critics Of An Absolute Rule Of Statutory Stare Decisis, Lawrence C. Marshall Aug 1990

Contempt Of Congress: A Reply To The Critics Of An Absolute Rule Of Statutory Stare Decisis, Lawrence C. Marshall

Michigan Law Review

In the law school tradition of "suspending belief," Professor Eskridge has created a hypothetical in which I, in my first case as Chief Justice of the United States, must decide whether to adhere to various antiquated and seemingly erroneous precedents interpreting the Mann Act. Eskridge assumes that I will feel compelled to adhere to these decisions, for to do otherwise, he contends, would force me to abandon the proposal for an absolute rule of statutory stare decisis that I advanced recently in this Law Review. Eskridge then offers a variety of critiques of my thesis, coming from perspectives as diverse …


Shattered Mirrors: Our Search For Identity And Community In The Aids Era, William J. Aseltyne May 1990

Shattered Mirrors: Our Search For Identity And Community In The Aids Era, William J. Aseltyne

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Shattered Mirrors: Our Search for Identity and Community in the AIDS Era by Monroe E. Price


The Child Sexual Abuse Literature: A Call For Greater Objectivity, John E.B. Myers May 1990

The Child Sexual Abuse Literature: A Call For Greater Objectivity, John E.B. Myers

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Accusations of Child Sexual Abuse by Hollida Wakefield and Ralph Underwager., The Battle and the Backlash: The Child Sexual Abuse War by David Hechler., On Trial: America's Courts and Their Treatment of Sexually Abused Children by Billie Wright Dziech and Chales B. Schudson.


Foundering On The Seas Of Hopelessness, Mary C. Dunlap May 1989

Foundering On The Seas Of Hopelessness, Mary C. Dunlap

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Gays/Justice: A Study of Ethics, Society, and Law by Richard D. Mohn


Fornication, Cohabitation, And The Constitution, Michigan Law Review Dec 1978

Fornication, Cohabitation, And The Constitution, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note begins with the indisputable assumption that laws prohibiting fornication and cohabitation are nowhere explioitly forbidden by the Constitution. If a right to engage in consensual adult heterosexual activity exists, it will most convincingly be inferred from the Court's cases establishing a right of "privacy." The Note first seeks to discover an adequate definition of privacy which might lead to a decision whether "privacy" encompasses the right .to fornicate or cohabit (a right which, for brevity's sake, we will somewhat imprecisely call the right to, sexual privacy), but it finds no such definition. The Note therefore proceeds to investigate …


Conjugal Visitation Rights And The Appropriate Standard Of Judicial Review For Prison Regulations, Michigan Law Review Dec 1974

Conjugal Visitation Rights And The Appropriate Standard Of Judicial Review For Prison Regulations, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Conjugal visitation rights allow prison inmates and spouses to visit privately and have sexual relations. A number of countries, particularly in Latin America, permit conjugal visits. Although in the United States only Mississippi and California currently permit conjugal visitation, the experience of these two states shows that such programs are workable. Conjugal visitation has met with varied reaction in the literature, but persuasive arguments have been made that it would offer potential psychological benefits to the prisoner, reduce prison homosexuality, and allow the inmate to preserve his or her marital ties. Nevertheless, the reaction of penal administrators in this country …


The Constitutionality Of Laws Forbidding Private Homosexual Conduct, Michigan Law Review Aug 1974

The Constitutionality Of Laws Forbidding Private Homosexual Conduct, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The laws of forty-three states and the District of Columbia impose criminal penalties on consenting adults who engage in private homosexual conduct. Most of these laws are sodomy statutes, which also prohibit oral and anal intercourse between heterosexuals and sexual acts with animals. Two states have statutes explicitly limited to homosexual conduct. These statutes also prohibit nonconsensual homosexual activity and homosexual acts involving a minor, but this Note addresses only prohibitions on private consensual adult homosexual conduct.


Reasonable Mistake Of Age: A Needed Defense To Statutory Rape, Larry W. Myers Nov 1965

Reasonable Mistake Of Age: A Needed Defense To Statutory Rape, Larry W. Myers

Michigan Law Review

Hernandez represents the first positive judicial step toward changing the irrational rules which currently control the crime of statutory rape, and its import should furnish a touchstone for the future development of the law of all sex crimes. In the brief period since the Hernandez decision was handed down it has been reaffirmed by its authors, and the legislatures in two other states have enacted statutes which embrace its sound reasoning. However, at least one state has evidenced an intent to follow the traditional judicial approach of imposing strict liability, notwithstanding the defendant's reasonable mistake with respect to the true …


Evidence Of The Absence Of Fresh Complaint Is Admissible In Sodomy Prosecution-United States V. Goodman, Michigan Law Review Feb 1965

Evidence Of The Absence Of Fresh Complaint Is Admissible In Sodomy Prosecution-United States V. Goodman, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was convicted of two counts of sodomy by a general court martial. The alleged victims of the defendant had failed to complain immediately following the incidents, and evidence of such failure on the part of one of the witnesses had been admitted at trial. A Navy board of review affirmed the conviction, modifying the sentence. Defendant appealed to the United States Court of Military Appeals on the ground that it had been prejudicial error for the law officer to refuse to give a proffered instruction to the court-martial panel respecting the victim's failure to make fresh complaints. On appeal, …


Legal, Medical And Psychiatric Considerations In The Control Of Prostitution, B. J. George Jr. Apr 1962

Legal, Medical And Psychiatric Considerations In The Control Of Prostitution, B. J. George Jr.

Michigan Law Review

In common with other nations of the world the United States today as in the past is faced with the problem of controlling prostitution, particularly in urban areas. At one time or another states and cities in the United States have experimented with the classic methods of controlling prostitution: reglementation, segregation and repression. Reglementation of individual houses or prostitutes has never been carried out on a statewide basis in any state in the United States, though one can find instances in certain large cities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in which city ordinances or de facto police regulations …


Evidence - Statutory Rape - Right Of Accused To Compulsory Blood Test Of Prosecutrix And Child, Edward Pastucha S.Ed. Dec 1954

Evidence - Statutory Rape - Right Of Accused To Compulsory Blood Test Of Prosecutrix And Child, Edward Pastucha S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was convicted of statutory rape on the strength of complaining witness' uncorroborated testimony. Testimony of the prosecutrix was to the effect that she had had sexual relations with defendant only once, that she had become pregnant and had given birth to a child prior to the trial, and that she had had sexual relations with no other men. Defendant moved for an order requiring that blood tests be taken of the child and the mother. The motion was denied. On appeal, held, affirmed. Assuming power, absent statute, to compel the taking of blood-grouping tests, the trial court did …


Constitutional Law - Validity Of Sex Offender Acts, William K. Jackson Feb 1939

Constitutional Law - Validity Of Sex Offender Acts, William K. Jackson

Michigan Law Review

The sex offender has become an acute problem. Sociologists, psychiatrists, and lawyers sensing the imperative need for action have devoted much time and thought to the questions involved. Experience has shown that the sex offender is generally a recidivist; he has to be arrested and committed repeatedly for the same type of crimes. The point is graphically illustrated by the case of a man, fifty-nine years of age, arrested recently in Detroit for a sex offense involving a youth. An examination of his record showed that he had been arrested in 1899, when twenty-one years of age, on charges involving …