Aspen Lecture: Getting to Same-Sex Marriage
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Drawing on his forthcoming book Sex and the Constitution, Geoffrey Stone traces the fascinating history of attitudes towards homosexuality, from the ancient Greeks and Romans through early Christianity and the Middle Ages, nineteenth-century America, the post-World War II Lavender Scare, and finally to the emergence of a gay rights movement in the age of Stonewall and AIDS. This historical journey includes constitutional arguments on issues such as sodomy, equal rights, and same-sex marriage, and the series of historic, but sharply-divided, Supreme Court decisions that have fundamentally redefined the role of gay, lesbian, and transgender persons in American society.
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