Law Commons^™

Religious Liberty, Discriminatory Intent, And The Conservative Constitution, Luke Boso

Utah Law Review

The Supreme Court shocked the world at the end of its 2021–22 term by issuing landmark decisions ending constitutional protection for abortion rights, expanding gun rights, and weakening what remained of the wall between church and state. One thread uniting these cases that captured the public’s attention is the rhetoric common of originalism—a backwards-looking theory of constitutional interpretation focused on founding-era meaning and intent. This Article identifies the discriminatory intent doctrine as another powerful tool the Court is using to protect the social norms and hierarchies of a bygone era, and to build a conservative Constitution.

Discriminatory intent rose to …

Find Out What It Means To Me: The Politics Of Respect And Dignity In Sexual Orientation Antidiscrimination, Jeremiah A. Ho

Utah Law Review

This Article considers the state of LGBTQ equality after the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Specifically, by examining this upsurge of social visibility for same-sex couples as both acceptance of sexual minorities and cultural assimilation, the Article finds that the marriage cases at the Supreme Court—Obergefell and United States v. Windsor—shifted the framing of gay rights from the politics of respect that appeared more than a decade ago in Lawrence v. Texas toward a politics of respectability. The Article traces this regression in Justice Kennedy’s own definition of dignity from Lawrence, where he approached the concept of dignity …