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FUNDAMENTALISM IN AMERICAN RELIGION AND LAW
Why, from Ronald Reagan to George Bush, have fundamentalists in religion and in
law (originalists) exercised such political power and influence in the United States?
Why has the Republican Party forged an ideology of judicial appointments (original-
ism) hostile to abortion and gay rights? Why and how did Barack Obama distinguish
himself among Democratic candidates not only by his opposition to the Iraq war but
also by his opposition to originalism?
This book argues that fundamentalism in both religion and law threatens demo-
cratic values and draws its appeal from a patriarchal psychology still alive in our
personal and political lives and at threat from constitutional developments since the
1960s. The argument analyzes this psychology (based on traumatic loss in intimate life)
and resistance to it (based on the love of equals). Obama’s resistance to originalism
arises from his developmental history as a democratic, as opposed to patriarchal, man
who resists the patriarchal demands on men and women that originalism enforces –
in particular, the patriarchal love laws that tell people who and how and how much
they may love.
David A. J. Richards is Edwin D. Webb Professor of Law at New York University
School of Law, where he teaches constitutional law, criminal law, and (with Carol
Gilligan) a seminar on resisting injustice. He is the author of sixteen books, most
recently
Tragic Manhood and Democracy: Verdi’s Voice and the Powers of Musical
Art
(2004);
Disarming Manhood: Roots of Ethical Resistance
(2005);
The Case for Gay
Rights: From
Bowers
to
Lawrence
and Beyond
(2005);
Patriarchal Religion, Sexuality,
and Gender: A Critique of New Natural Law
(with Nicholas Bamforth, 2008);
The
Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy’s Future
(with Carol
Gilligan, 2009); and
The Sodomy Cases:
Bowers v. Hardwick
and
Lawrence v. Texas
(2009). He has served as vice president of the American Society for Political and Legal
Philosophy and was the Shikes Lecturer in Civil Liberties at the Harvard Law School
in 1998.
FUNDAMENTALISM IN
AMERICAN RELIGION
AND LAW
Obama’s Challenge to Patriarchy’s
Threat to Democracy
David A. J. Richards
New York University, School of Law
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