A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection A “volume of lasting significance” that illuminates how the clash between sex and religion has defined our nation’s history (Lee C. Bollinger, president, Columbia University). Lauded for “bringing a bracing and much-needed dose of reality about the Founders’ views of sexuality” (New York Review of Books), Geoffrey R. Stone’s Sex and the Constitution traces the evolution of legal and moral codes that have legislated sexual behavior from America’s earliest days to today’s fractious political climate. This “fascinating and maddening” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) narrative shows how agitators, moralists, and, especially, the justices of the Supreme Court have navigated issues as divisive as abortion, homosexuality, pornography, and contraception. Overturning a raft of contemporary shibboleths, Stone reveals that at the time the Constitution was adopted there were no laws against obscenity or abortion before the midpoint of pregnancy. A pageant of historical characters, including Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson, Anthony Comstock, Margaret Sanger, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, enliven this “commanding synthesis of scholarship” (Publishers Weekly) that dramatically reveals how our laws about sex, religion, and morality reflect the cultural schisms that have cleaved our nation from its founding.

To access the 2016-17 supplement to this text click here. In this textbook, Professor Nicolas incorporates his expertise in constitutional law, federal courts, and sexual orientation, gender identity, and the law to provide a comprehensive approach to studying constitutional litigation involving the rights of sexual minorities. The book first addresses threshold questions regarding the definitions of sexual orientation, sex, and gender, setting the stage for the question of "immutability" and the status-conduct and speech-conduct lines that arise in the substantive materials that follow. Next, it addresses procedural obstacles that play an increasingly prominent role in constitutional litigation involving the rights of sexual minorities, such as standing, mootness, abstention, and the precedential weight of summary affirmances by the U.S. Supreme Court. Finally, it examines the key constitutional doctrines that arise in litigation regarding the rights of sexual minorities--substantive due process, equal protection, and First Amendment--in a variety of contexts, such as marriage, parenting, and public employment. The book thus replicates the stages of analysis that arise when litigating any such case from start to finish. Because the book covers basic constitutional law doctrine as well as more focused case law regarding the constitutional rights of sexual minorities, it can be used effectively in a stand-alone course on sexual orientation, gender identity, and the law as well as in a traditional, rights-based constitutional law course taught by a faculty member who wishes to teach the course with greater focus on the constitutional rights of sexual minorities. Moreover, it is sufficiently comprehensive for use in non-law school courses as well.

Sexual citizenship has become a key concept in the social sciences. It describes the rights and responsibilities of citizens in sexual and intimate life, including debates over equal marriage and women's human rights, as well as shaping thinking about citizenship more generally. But what does it mean in a continually changing political landscape of gender and sexuality? In this timely intervention, Diane Richardson examines the normative underpinnings and varied critiques of sexual citizenship, asking what they mean for its future conceptual and empirical development, as well as for political activism. Clearly written, the book shows how the field of sexuality and citizenship connects to a range of important areas of debate including understandings of nationalism, identity, neoliberalism, equality, governmentality, individualization, colonialism, human rights, globalization and economic justice. Ultimately this book calls for a critical rethink of sexual citizenship. Illustrating her argument with examples drawn from across the globe, Richardson contends that this is essential if scholars want to understand the sexual politics that made the field of sexuality and citizenship studies what it is today, and to enable future analyses of the sexual inequalities that continue to mark the global order.

How Sex Became a Civil Liberty shows how we came to see sexual expression, sexual practice, and sexual privacy as fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution, thanks to the work of ACLU leaders and attorneys who forged legal principles that advanced the sexual revolution.

Considers whether and how constitutions have affirmed women's equal citizenship status, from the birth of constitutionalism to the present.

Are sex scandals simply trivial distractions from serious issues or can they help democratize politics? In 1820, George IV's "royal gambols" with his mistresses endangered the Old Oak of the constitution. When he tried to divorce Queen Caroline for adultery, the resulting scandal enabled activists to overcome state censorship and revitalize reform. Looking at six major British scandals between 1763 and 1820, this book demonstrates that scandals brought people into politics because they evoked familiar stories of sex and betrayal. In vibrant prose woven with vivid character sketches and illustrations, Anna Clark explains that activists used these stories to illustrate constitutional issues concerning the Crown, Parliament, and public opinion. Clark argues that sex scandals grew out of the tension between aristocratic patronage and efficiency in government. For instance, in 1809 Mary Ann Clarke testified that she took bribes to persuade her royal lover, the army's commander-in-chief, to promote officers, buy government offices, and sway votes. Could women overcome scandals to participate in politics? This book also explains the real reason why the glamorous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, became so controversial for campaigning in a 1784 election. Sex scandal also discredited Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the first feminists, after her death. Why do some scandals change politics while others fizzle? Edmund Burke tried to stir up scandal about the British empire in India, but his lurid, sexual language led many to think he was insane. A unique blend of the history of sexuality and women's history with political and constitutional history, Scandal opens a revealing new window onto some of the greatest sex scandals of the past. In doing so, it allows us to more fully appreciate the sometimes shocking ways democracy has become what it is today.

Sex and sexuality are an integral part of human life and vital for the survival of the human race, but sexual freedoms in many countries have yet to be enshrined as constitutional rights. Focusing primarily on Japan, Shigenori Matsui explores the extent to which governments should be allowed to restrict or influence sexual autonomy. Should a constitution encompass rights including: to decide or change sexual or gender identity; to have children, through natural birth or through medically assisted reproduction; or to not have children, through access to abortion? This rigorously detailed legal analysis has implications for government policy in all countries facing similar issues.