Focusing on six major Supreme Court cases during the 1960s and
1970s, Marc Stein examines the generally liberal rulings on birth
control, abortion, interracial marriage, and obscenity in
Griswold,
Eisenstadt,
Roe,
Loving, and
Fanny Hill alongside a profoundly conservative ruling on
homosexuality in
Boutilier. In the same era in which the
Court recognized special marital, reproductive, and heterosexual
rights and privileges, it also upheld an immigration statute that
classified homosexuals as "psychopathic personalities." Stein shows
how a diverse set of influential journalists, judges, and scholars
translated the Court's language about marital and reproductive
rights into bold statements about sexual freedom and equality.