Law Review: The Constitutional Status of Moral Legislation

The Constitutional Status of Moral Legislation
John Lawrence Hill, 98 Ky. L.J. 1 (2010)

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This Article argues that, in seeking to protect the private activities of gays and lesbians, liberals from Hart on have thought it necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater by maintaining that the state may never regulate on the basis of ‘private morals.’ The better conclusion is that society has now reached a general consensus that it is wrong to single out one type of sexual activity and mark for punishment the class of people who engage in it. This, indeed, is the meaning of Lawrence v. Texas, and not the more expansive claim that Lawrence declares the end of morals legislation.