Law's Promise, Law's Expression: Visions of Power in the Politics of Race, Gender, and Religion - Softcover

Karst, Kenneth L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300065078 ISBN 13: 9780300065077

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1995

Synopsis

The conservative "social issues agenda" is targeted to voters who have felt left out, even threatened, by the successes of the civil rights movement, the women's movement, and the gay rights movement. The agenda centers on the expressive capacities of law and promises a cultural counterrevolution. It evokes visions of an earlier social order in which most citizens who were black or female or gay stayed "in their place"―and the place was a subordinate one. In this lively and provocative book, a constitutional law scholar argues eloquently that most of the social issues agenda for law violates the constitutional principle of equal citizenship.

Kenneth Karst, author of the prize-winning Belonging to America: Equal Citizenship and the Constitution, discusses a broad range of controversial issues, from street crime to pornography, from school prayers to sodomy, from abortion to welfare to the participation of women and gays in the armed forces. In most of these areas of law the social issues agenda sounds a persistent theme: an ideology of masculinity that treats power as its own justification and equates the proof of manhood with the expression of dominance. Translating this ideology into law raises grave constitutional questions. In the social-issues contexts of race, gender, sexuality, and religion, Karst argues, judicial review of governmental action should focus on concerns for the full inclusion of all Americans in the national community.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The conservative 'social issues agenda' promises to use the power of law to effect a cultural counterrevolution that would negate the successes of the civil rights movement, the women's movement, and the gay rights movement. In this lively and provocative book, the author of Belonging to America discusses a wide range of issues-from street crime and pornography to abortion and school prayer-and argues eloquently that most of the social issues agenda violates the constitutional principle of equal citizenship.

From Kirkus Reviews

A brief but profound analysis of how the Reagan-Bush right has exploited the law to victimize women, gays, and ethnic minorities. Karst (Law/UCLA; Belonging to America, 1989) looks at the conservative ``social issues agenda'' to show how its call for a return to ``family values'' (code name for a host of causes--civil rights deregulations, an end to abortion rights, the revival of school prayer, etc.) is little more than brilliantly staged ``political theater'': a cynical manipulation of the ``expressive qualities'' of the law to stigmatize and thereby exclude certain groups in a winner-take-all struggle for social dominance. Karst ranges widely, but never wildly, over a broad field of timely topics (e.g., Colorado's antigay initiative, gays and women in the military, Tailhook, Quayle on ``Murphy Brown,'' university speech codes, the L.A. riots) and recent Supreme Court cases (including Casey, which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade, and Weisman, which found prayers at public school graduation ceremonies to be unconstitutional). He argues that these seemingly unrelated conflicts all reveal the basic tenet of the social-issues agenda: that the ``gender line is under attack and must be defended'' by using the law to subjugate, if only symbolically, all those who challenge the ``ideology of masculinity''--that is, white, straight, Christian masculinity. According to Karst, Clinton's election has not snuffed the ``politics of cultural counterrevolution'': on the contrary, the social-issues agenda continues to dominate local elections and both state and federal courts. Karst's writing is surprisingly restrained, given his incendiary thesis. Some readers may be deterred by the occasionally opaque analysis of Supreme Court doctrine and the copious notes (one-third of the book), but those who persevere will get a fascinating tour of the murky ``zone where religion, sex and politics intersect.'' Challenging and intense--for all serious students of American culture, but probably best for those with some background in the law. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0300065078
• ISBN 13: 9780300065077
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 334