10 decisions that prevent the right from controlling your sex life

Mon, 24 Dec 2012 12:45:00 +0000

If the Christian Right had its way, the United States would be a fundamentalist theocracy in which contraception, homosexuality, abortion, sexually explicit hip-hop lyrics and all adult pornography were illegal. But making the U.S. that much of a theocracy would mean overturning a lot of major Supreme Court decisions. Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has had many rulings that helped to advance sexual freedom in the United States—and it will be easier to protect those advances if fewer socially conservative justices of the Antonin Scalia/Clarence Thomas variety are appointed in the future.

Certainly, the Christian Right would have had a better chance of bringing more hardcore social conservatives to the High Court if Republican Mitt Romney had been elected president on November 6, whereas President Barack Obama has shown a tendency to nominate justices who are at least centrist in their judicial philosophy. And now that Obama is getting ready to begin his second term, he will be more likely to appoint justices who will uphold or perhaps even expand Supreme Court decisions that are favorable to gay rights (Lawrence v. Texas), contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird), or one’s right to possess sexually explicit adult erotica (Stanley v. Georgia).

Salon.com > Alex Henderson

10 decisions that prevent the right from controlling your sex life