Why have the issues of religious liberty, free speech and constitutional privacy come to figure so prominently in our society? What are the origins of the basic principles of our constitutional law? This work develops a general theory of constitutional interpretation based on an original synthesis of political theory, history, law, and a larger approach to the interpretation of culture. In fusing these myriad components, Professor Richards argues against the notion of "interpretivism"--the view that constitutional interpretation is concerned exclusively with the text of the Constitution and the views of its authors--and contends that the best political theory is one in which courts are permitted use contractarian theory to decide about individual rights that are immunized from majoritarian control. Presenting both historical and theoretical arguments in support of a theory that affirms the moral sovereignty of the people, Richards maintains that toleration, or respect for conscience and individual freedom, is the central constitutional ideal. He discusses such current topics of constitutional controversy as church-state relations, the scope of free speech, and the application of the constitutional right to privacy to abortion and consensual adult sexual relations.

Toleration and the Constitution

Richards, David A.J.

Oxford University Press

In writing the constitution, the Founders combined a Lockean theory of politically legitimate power with the political science they had learned from Machiavelli, Harrington, Hume, and Montesquieu to articulate a new conception of constitutional argument. Examining the Founders' humanist analytical methods and working assumptions, this book combines history, political philosophy, and interpretive practice as it demonstrates an alternative exegesis of the Constitution. It clarifies a wide range of interpretive issues of federalism, enumerated rights (religious liberty and free speech), unenumerated rights (the constitutional right to privacy), and equal protection.

Foundations of American Constitutionalism

Humor & Entertainment

Movies

Why have the issues of religious liberty, free speech and constitutional privacy come to figure so prominently in our society? What are the origins of the basic principles of our constitutional law? This work develops a general theory of constitutional interpretation based on an original synthesis of political theory, history, law, and a larger approach to the interpretation of culture. Presenting both historical and theoretical arguments in support of a theory that affirms the moral sovereignty of the people, Richards maintains that toleration, or respect for conscience and individual freedom, is the central constitutional ideal. He discusses such current topics of constitutional controversy as church-state relations, the scope of free speech, and the application of the constitutional right to privacy, to abortion, and consensual adult sexual relations.

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Free Speech and the Politics of Identity challenges the scholarly view as well as the dominant legal view outside the United States that the right of free speech may reasonably be traded off in pursuit of justice to stigmatized minorities. The book's innovative normative and interpretative methodology calls for a new departure in comparative public law, in which all states responsibly address their common problems, not only of inadequate protection of free speech, but also correlative failure to take seriously the continuing political power of such evils as anti-Semitism, racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Free Speech and the Politics of Identity

Reference

Words, Language & Grammar

In this remarkable study, David A. J. Richards combines an interpretive history of culture and law, political philosophy, and constitutional analysis to explain the background, development, and growing impact of two of the most important and challenging human rights movements of our time, feminism and gay rights. Richards argues that both movements are extensions of rights-based dissent, rooted in antebellum abolitionist feminism that condemned both American racism and sexism. He sees the progressive role of such radical dissent as an emancipated moral voice in the American constitutional tradition. He examines the role of dissident African Americans, Jews, women, and homosexuals in forging alternative visions of rights-based democracy. He also draws special attention to Walt Whitman's visionary poetry, showing how it made space for the silenced and subjugated voices of homosexuals in public and private culture. According to Richards, contemporary feminism rediscovers and elaborates this earlier tradition. And, similarly, the movement for gay rights builds upon an interpretation of abolitionist feminism developed by Whitman in his defense, both in poetry and prose, of love between men. Richards explores Whitman's impact on pro-gay advocates, including John Addington Symonds, Havelock Ellis, Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde, and André Gide. He also discusses other diverse writers and reformers such as Margaret Sanger, Franz Boas, Elizabeth Stanton, W. E. B. DuBois, and Adrienne Rich. Richards addresses current controversies such as the exclusion of homosexuals from the military and from the right to marriage and concludes with a powerful defense of the struggle for such constitutional rights in terms of the principles of rights-based feminism.

Women, Gays, and the Constitution: The Grounds for Feminism and Gay Rights in Culture and Law

Social Sciences

University of Chicago Press

In this remarkable study, David A. J. Richards combines an interpretive history of culture and law, political philosophy, and constitutional analysis to explain the background, development, and growing impact of two of the most important and challenging human rights movements of our time, feminism and gay rights. Richards argues that both movements are extensions of rights-based dissent, rooted in antebellum abolitionist feminism that condemned both American racism and sexism. He sees the progressive role of such radical dissent as an emancipated moral voice in the American constitutional tradition. He examines the role of dissident African Americans, Jews, women, and homosexuals in forging alternative visions of rights-based democracy. He also draws special attention to Walt Whitman's visionary poetry, showing how it made space for the silenced and subjugated voices of homosexuals in public and private culture. According to Richards, contemporary feminism rediscovers and elaborates this earlier tradition. And, similarly, the movement for gay rights builds upon an interpretation of abolitionist feminism developed by Whitman in his defense, both in poetry and prose, of love between men. Richards explores Whitman's impact on pro-gay advocates, including John Addington Symonds, Havelock Ellis, Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde, and André Gide. He also discusses other diverse writers and reformers such as Margaret Sanger, Franz Boas, Elizabeth Stanton, W. E. B. DuBois, and Adrienne Rich. Richards addresses current controversies such as the exclusion of homosexuals from the military and from the right to marriage and concludes with a powerful defense of the struggle for such constitutional rights in terms of the principles of rights-based feminism.

How should we chart a course toward legal recognition of gay rights as basic human rights? In this enlightening study, legal scholar David Richards explores the connections between gay rights and three successful civil rights movements—black civil rights, feminism, and religious toleration—to determine how these might serve as analogies for the gay rights movement. Richards argues that racial and gender struggles are informative but partial models. As in these movements, achieving gay rights requires eliminating unjust stereotypes and allowing one's identity to develop free from intolerant views. Richards stresses, however, that gay identity is an ethical choice based on gender equality. Thus the right to religious freedom offers the most compelling analogy for a gay rights movement because gay identity should be protected legally as an ethical decision of conscience. A thoughtful and highly original voice in the struggle for gay rights, David Richards is the first to argue that discrimination is like religious intolerance-denial of full humanity to individuals because of their identity and moral commitments to gender equality.

Identity and the Case for Gay Rights: Race, Gender, Religion as Analogies

How should we chart a course toward legal recognition of gay rights as basic human rights? In this enlightening study, legal scholar David Richards explores the connections between gay rights and three successful civil rights movements—black civil rights, feminism, and religious toleration—to determine how these might serve as analogies for the gay rights movement. Richards argues that racial and gender struggles are informative but partial models. As in these movements, achieving gay rights requires eliminating unjust stereotypes and allowing one's identity to develop free from intolerant views. Richards stresses, however, that gay identity is an ethical choice based on gender equality. Thus the right to religious freedom offers the most compelling analogy for a gay rights movement because gay identity should be protected legally as an ethical decision of conscience. A thoughtful and highly original voice in the struggle for gay rights, David Richards is the first to argue that discrimination is like religious intolerance-denial of full humanity to individuals because of their identity and moral commitments to gender equality.

Resisting Injustice and the Feminist Ethics of Care in the Age of Obama (Routledge Research in American Politics and Governance)

David A. J. Richards’s Resisting Injustice and The Feminist Ethics of Care in The Age of Obama: "Suddenly,…All The Truth Was Coming Out" builds on his and Carol Gilligan’s The Deepening Darkness to examine the roots of the resistance movements of the 1960s, the political psychology behind contemporary conservatism, and President Obama’s present-day appeal as well as the reasons for the reactionary politics against him. Richards begins by laying out the basics of the ethics of care and proposing an alternative basis for ethics: relationality, which is based in convergent findings in infant research, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology. He critically analyzes patriarchal politics and states that they are rooted in a reactionary psychology that attacks human relationality and ethics. From there, the book examines the 1960s resistance movements and argues that they were fundamentally oriented around challenging patriarchy. Richards asserts that the reactionary politics in America from the 1960s to the present are in service of an American patriarchy threatened by the resistance movements ranging from the 1960s civil rights movements to the present gay rights movement. Reactionary politics intend to marginalize and even reverse the ethical achievements accomplished by resistance movements―creating, in effect, a system of patriarchy hiding in democracy. Richards consequently argues that Obama’s appeal is connected to his challenge to this system of patriarchy and will examine both Obama’s appeal and the reactions against him in light of the 2012 presidential election. This book positions recent American political development in a broad analysis of the role of patriarchy in human oppression throughout history, and argues that a feminist-based ethics of care is necessary to form a more humane and inclusive democratic politics.

Religion & Spirituality

Routledge

Patriarchal Religion, Sexuality, and Gender: A Critique of New Natural Law

Fundamentalist forms of religion today claim authority everywhere, including the debates over the politics and constitutional law of liberal democracies. This book examines this general question through its critical evaluation of a recent school of thought: that of the new natural lawyers. The new natural lawyers are the lawyers of the current Vatical hierarchy, polemically concerned to defend its retrograde views on matters of sexuality and gender in terms of arguments that, in fact, notably lack the philosophical rigor of the historical Thomism they claim to honor. The book critiques forms of fundamentalism and offers an original argument both for how they arose and why they are unreasonable in contemporary circumstances.

Bamforth, Nicholas

Christian Books & Bibles

Cambridge University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Richards, David A.J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Richards, David A.J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Richards, David A.J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Toleration and the Constitution

Foundations of American Constitutionalism

Toleration and the Constitution

Free Speech and the Politics of Identity

Women, Gays, and the Constitution: The Grounds for Feminism and Gay Rights in Culture and Law

Women, Gays, and the Constitution: The Grounds for Feminism and Gay Rights in Culture and Law

Identity and the Case for Gay Rights: Race, Gender, Religion as Analogies

Identity and the Case for Gay Rights: Race, Gender, Religion as Analogies

Resisting Injustice and the Feminist Ethics of Care in the Age of Obama (Routledge Research in American Politics and Governance)

Patriarchal Religion, Sexuality, and Gender: A Critique of New Natural Law