Scan barcode
A review by smortnerd
Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century by Geoffrey R. Stone
5.0
The core issue that came out of this, for me, is the issue that I have longed believe to be at the root of many of the mostly hotly debated political issues of the last one hundred years/all of time: the connection of religion and politics. We have a wall, constitutionally provided, between church and state, and yet we consistently ignore it and facetiously find secular reasons for laws that are clearly religiously based. Those secular reasons are often a stretch of the imagination, and thus unjust laws are occasionally and correctly struck down.
That's my main takeaway: the problem with America is religion, specifically Christian religion, more specifically evangelical Christian religion. For me, right and wrong seems fairly clear cut, but then again I don't allow centuries of dogmatic conditioning to cloud my judgment. So this book was both enlightening and incredibly frustrating. The level of anger I experienced at certain points meant I had to put the book aside and read something else for a day or I was going to explode in a way I was going to regret. There are also certain people I didn't realize were heroes that I learned more about (Justice Kennedy) and people I had always been taught were heroes who turned out to be ruled by their religion more than by principle (Justice Scalia).
For those who stand on the conservative side of the issues at hand here, they will say the author is clearly a liberal and biased. I would argue they are clearly biased, but that's not something I'm going to go into any further, I think I've made pretty clear how I feel. And you know what? He might be. But, I also found that while he occasionally expressed an opinion about the outcome of cases, he also did a fair job of presenting both sides of the argument. When he presented his analysis of the debate, if he did point out falsehoods in one side or the other, he cited prior precedent or other evidence for WHY. I was worried this could descend easily into partisan lecturing, but while he clearly had a viewpoint, he didn't stand on his soapbox to preach about it.
I would recommend that everyone should read this book, there's something to learn here for both sides of the issues he addresses.
That's my main takeaway: the problem with America is religion, specifically Christian religion, more specifically evangelical Christian religion. For me, right and wrong seems fairly clear cut, but then again I don't allow centuries of dogmatic conditioning to cloud my judgment. So this book was both enlightening and incredibly frustrating. The level of anger I experienced at certain points meant I had to put the book aside and read something else for a day or I was going to explode in a way I was going to regret. There are also certain people I didn't realize were heroes that I learned more about (Justice Kennedy) and people I had always been taught were heroes who turned out to be ruled by their religion more than by principle (Justice Scalia).
For those who stand on the conservative side of the issues at hand here, they will say the author is clearly a liberal and biased. I would argue they are clearly biased, but that's not something I'm going to go into any further, I think I've made pretty clear how I feel. And you know what? He might be. But, I also found that while he occasionally expressed an opinion about the outcome of cases, he also did a fair job of presenting both sides of the argument. When he presented his analysis of the debate, if he did point out falsehoods in one side or the other, he cited prior precedent or other evidence for WHY. I was worried this could descend easily into partisan lecturing, but while he clearly had a viewpoint, he didn't stand on his soapbox to preach about it.
I would recommend that everyone should read this book, there's something to learn here for both sides of the issues he addresses.