Author Description

This casebook offers professors and students a doctrinally comprehensive, theoretically ambitious, and up-to-date exploration of the treatment of sexuality and gender issues in American public law. The Fifth Edition opens with the historically grounded first chapter from earlier editions, which maps the three primary constitutional themes of liberty, equality, and expression through the end of the twentieth century. Throughout, the book fully integrates the ramifications stemming from the latest court decisions, including Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization and new religious liberty decisions and debates. Highlights of the Fifth Edition include: A probing of where the Court's turn in recent years toward an equal liberty analysis stands in the wake of Dobbs, including threats posed by the reversal of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey to the doctrinal foundations of Lawrence v. Texas and Obergefell v. Hodges. The increasing prominence of the argument that discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer-identified persons constitutes discrimination "because of sex," as recognized by the Supreme Court's opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, interpreting Title VII, and the related question of how Bostock will affect interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause and other antidiscrimination statutes. Increased coverage of how the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act are being deployed aggressively by the Supreme Court to carve out exemptions and allowances for individuals, companies, and religious institutions to discriminate against women and LGBTQ persons. Examples include questions such as whether Fulton v. Philadelphia limits or partially overrules Obergefell by requiring a government program to discriminate against same-sex married couples and the extent to which expansion of "the ministeri