Law Commons^™

Windsor Products: Equal Protection From Animus, Dale Carpenter

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The Supreme Court's opinion in United States v. Windsor has puzzled commentators, who have tended to overlook or dismiss its ultimate conclusion that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional because it arose from animus. What we have in Justice Kennedy’s opinion is Windsor Products — an outpouring of decades of constitutional development whose fountainhead is Carolene Products and whose tributaries are the gay-rights and federalism streams. This paper presents the constitutional anti-animus principle, including what constitutes animus, why it offends the Constitution, and how the Supreme Court determines it is present. The paper also discusses why the Court was …

The Unknown Past Of Lawrence V. Texas, Dale Carpenter

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article is an attempt to fill in some of the gaps in the public's knowledge of the case Lawrence v. Texas. Much of the rich post-arrest history of the case has been ignored. But for the courage, insight, and initiative of three men in particular, the arrest might have been another forgotten episode in what the author calls the under history of the Texas sodomy law, the history not told in appellate opinions or in most other accounts.

Section II reviews the "somewhat known" past, tracing the evolution of the Texas sodomy law from a statute so facially …