Lawrence and Same-Sex Marriage Bans: On Constitutional Interpretation and Sophistical Rhetoric
Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: In Lawrence v. Texas,' the United States Supreme Court struck down Texas's sodomy law.The majority carefully made clear that it was not deciding whether the right to marry a same-sex partner was constitutionally protected, but instead was focusing on the criminal aspects of the prohibition at issue.Justice Scalia implied in dissent that the Court had abandoned principled constitutional interpretation and might well eventually recognize the right of same-sex couples to marry.While the Court is unlikely to recognize such a right in the near future, the right of same-sex couples to marry follows from the right-to-marry jurisprudence existing prior to Lawrence.Lawrence is important not because it recognized a right to same-sex marriage but because it overruled a decision that had falsely been thought to bar the right to marry a samesex partner.This Article examines Lawrence in light of McLaughlin v. Florida,' Loving v. Virginia, 4 and the right-to-
Source: bepress Legal Repository
Author: Mark Strasser
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7020464389