Mikey B.'s Reviews > Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century

This is an excellent book outlining the control that religious groups have exerted over sexual behavior – be it contraception, abortion, gay rights, and let us say sex in general (sex outside marriage, consensual adult sex, reading “forbidden” books...).

The author gives us a short history of Christianity and how it brought shame, guilt, and repression to all forms of sexuality. The Christian faith and their various offshoots were able to do this for over one thousand years until the Enlightenment.

Page 80 my book

The twentieth-century historian Crane Brinton once quipped that in the sexual realm we now permit “much that the nineteenth century forbade”, but whether we have yet returned “to eighteenth century standards is a nice point of critical discussion.”


The author then goes on to demonstrate how religious forces in the U.S. have constantly exerted a very strong influence over government legislation. It began in the 19th century with Anthony Comstock who devised a successful campaign to arrest anyone dealing with “lewd” literature, contraceptives, and abortion. What was once legal became a criminal offense. Women no longer had access to abortion, and some, in desperation, resorted to methods which caused many to die.

What is also interesting is how religious forces continually organize to combat what is legal at State and Federal levels. Prime examples are the legality of abortion (obtained in 1973) and the growing acceptance of Gay marriage. Over the years they have constantly narrowed down the parameters by which a woman can have an abortion.

By religious groups I am referring to fundamentalist churches and the Roman Catholic Church. Their use of rhetoric against abortion and gay people has grown increasing vitriolic and hateful.

The author successfully predicts the recent Supreme Court decision on a bakery being permitted to refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because the bakery felt it violated their religious beliefs. Where does this all end? I will not cut your hair because it offends my religious beliefs, I will not work with a Muslim individual because of their beliefs, a male will not work with a female because it is against their religion. More and more the religious world is impinging on the secular world. Many religious groups equivocate sin with crime.

The author exposes how different judges on the Supreme Court are being chosen or refused due to their beliefs. Barack Obama had a Supreme Court nominee (Chief Judge Merrick Garland) voted down by Republicans because his views were too moderate (or liberal).

The U.S. is becoming increasingly polarized between conservative-religious states and liberal-tolerant states. This divisiveness continues to grow.

Nevertheless it is truly remarkable the progress that sexuality has made since the 1950’s. Much of this is due to the constant pressure that women’s’ groups made (which also included support from men) to control their lives and bodies. The same can said for the advances Gay people have made. In many ways sex, in all its wonder, came out of the closet. All this is due to long fought efforts against religious and government forces.

I am constantly perplexed by the religious adversaries who want to control other people’s sexual lives.

Of course this book being about sex is very readable and entertaining. Some of the constitution stuff is interesting too!