Laws Promise, Laws Expression: Visions of Power in the Politics of Race, Gender, and Religion

by Kenneth L. Karst

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300065078
• ISBN13: 9780300065077
• Release Date: September 1995
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 334 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A most intelligent book

Many social science books are propaganda pieces for a particular viewpoint or ideology. Not this one. This one is a calm, cool, and collected analysis of why the conservative social-issue agenda is not a true defense of any family value but an effort to push the political interests of those with an old-time white male evangelical Christian ideal, at the expense of everyone else -- blacks, women, libertarians, Native Americans, Jews, other non-christians, etc. On the other hand, this book is not a textbook, and does require some prior knowledge of U.S. constitutional law. It may be easier to understand to readers with at least a college-level government or constitutional law class.