The gay rights question is whether the second-class legal status of gay people should be changed. In this book Andrew Koppelman shows the powerful legal and moral case for gay equality, but argues that courts cannot and should not impose it.
"The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law" offers an unusually nuanced analysis of the most pressing gay rights issues. Does antigay discrimination violate the Constitution? Is there any sound moral objection to homosexual conduct? Are such objections the moral and constitutional equivalent of racism? Must state laws recognizing same-sex...

This important book addresses head-on the controversy over attempts to reshape society in the name of antidiscrimination. While most Americans understand that racism and similar ideologies are so destructive that the state should do what it can to eradicate them, this understanding conflicts with another widely held idea, that the shaping of citizens' beliefs is not a legitimate objective of a liberal state. Andrew Koppelman argues that the modern conception of antidiscrimination law as a project of cultural transformation is consistent with, and even demanded by, principles of liberty. He...

Must a state in which gay marriage is not legal recognize such a marriage performed in another state? The Constitution does not require recognition in all cases, but it does forbid states from nullifying family relationships based in other states, or from making themselves havens for people who are trying to escape obligations to their spouses and children. In this book, Andrew Koppelman offers workable legal solutions to the problems that arise when gay couples cross state borders. Drawing on historical precedents in which states held radically different moral views about marriage (for...

Should the Boy Scouts of America and other noncommercial associations have a right to discriminate when selecting their members?

Does the state have a legitimate interest in regulating the membership practices of private associations? These questions-- raised by Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Scouts had a right to expel gay members-- are at the core of this provocative book, an in-depth exploration of the tension between freedom of association and antidiscrimination law.

The book demonstrates that the "right" to discriminate has a long...

Chief Justice John Roberts stunned the nation by upholding the Affordable Care Act--more commonly known as Obamacare. But legal experts observed that the decision might prove a strategic defeat for progressives. Roberts grounded his decision on Congress's power to tax. He dismissed the claim that it is allowed under the Constitution's commerce clause, which has been the basis of virtually all federal regulation--now thrown in doubt.
In The Tough Luck Constitution and the Assault on Health Care Reform, Andrew Koppelman explains how the Court's conservatives embraced the arguments of a...