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A Reply to Louis Michael Seidman\u27s Respons

Book Review: Nothing To Lose But Our Chains: On Constitutional Disobedience, by Louis Michael Seidman

Book review of Nothing To Lose But Our Chains: On Constitutional Disobedience, by Louis Michael Seidman

The End of Constitutional Law?

Book review: On constitutional disobedience. By Louis Michael Seidman. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. 2013. Pp. xii + 162. Reviewed by Adam Shinar

The End of Constitutional Law?

Book review: On constitutional disobedience. By Louis Michael Seidman. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. 2013. Pp. xii + 162. Reviewed by Adam Shinar

Against (Constitutional) Settlement. Book Review Of: Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review. by Louis Michael Seidman

Book review of: Our unsettled Constitution: a new defense of constitutionalism and judicial review. By Louis Michael Seidman. Yale University Press. 2001. Pp. 260. Reviewed by: Brannon P. Dennin

Against (Constitutional) Settlement. Book Review Of: Our Unsettled Constitution: A New Defense of Constitutionalism and Judicial Review. by Louis Michael Seidman

Book review of: Our unsettled Constitution: a new defense of constitutionalism and judicial review. By Louis Michael Seidman. Yale University Press. 2001. Pp. 260. Reviewed by: Brannon P. Dennin

The Triumph of Gay Marriage and the Failure of Constitutional Law

The Supreme Court\u27s much anticipated invalidation of gay marriage bans improved the personal lives of millions of ordinary Americans. It made the country a more decent place. Even Chief Justice Roberts, at the conclusion of his otherwise scathing dissent, acknowledged that the decision was a cause for many Americans to celebrate. But although the Chief Justice thought that advocates of gay marriage should by all means celebrate today\u27s decision, he admonished them not [to] celebrate the Constitution. The Constitution, he said, had nothing to do with it . Part I of this article quarrels with the Chief Justice\u27s assertion that the Constitution had nothing to do with it. It argues that it is the dissenting justices, rather than their colleagues in the majority, who have ignored the traditions of American Constitutional law. Part II argues that the Chief Justice is exactly right when he says that we should celebrate the Obergefell decision, but not the Constitution, but he is right for reasons that he, himself, would disagree with. The Court\u27s decision marks a partial and flawed but nonetheless important advance toward inclusion and decency. The majority\u27s opinion, replete with invocations of the supposedly binding force of constitutional obligation, belittling of the large and growing number of Americans who are unmarried, and mischaracterization of the nature of the movement for gay rights, is exclusionary, reactionary, and authoritarian. Even as the Court demonstrates its (concededly limited) capacity to advance the cause of social justice, it unwittingly also demonstrates the failure of constitutional law to serve its core purpose of providing a just ground for cooperation among people who disagree about fundamentals. A brief conclusion discusses the implications of this failure

A Thought Experiment

Herewith, Justice Antonin Scalia\u27s long lost dissenting opinion in Brown v. Board of Education

Out of Bounds

Lawrence v. Texas creates a crisis for inclusive constitutionalism. Too often, advocates of inclusion and tolerance wish to include only those ideas and groups with which they agree. The test for true inclusion and tolerance, however, is whether we are willing to protect groups when they engage in conduct of which we disapprove. It follows that the boundaries of inclusion cannot be established simply by moral argument; yet, any plausible version of constitutional law must use some method to bound the people and activity that it protects. Defenders of inclusive constitutionalism have not been successful in identifying a method, independent of moral argument, for bounding constitutional rights. This difficulty can best be addressed by modifying our ambitions for constitutional law. Instead of a method for requiring agreement, constitutional law might be reconceptualized as a method for destabilizing all boundaries, thereby reconciling groups with widely different moral views to the political order