In American law, the βrights revolutionβ of the last five decades shows scarcely any signs of abating. Federal and state judges continue to invalidate laws on flimsy constitutional grounds, justifying their actions on the basis of invented notions such as βthe right to privacyβ and strained readings of established legal principles such as the βequal protection of the laws.β In some states, judges effectively wield more power than legislators, as evidenced by the judicial imposition of βsame-sex marriageβ in Massachusetts (2003) and Connecticut (2008).
Left-leaning judges and their allies in the legal academy have no dearth of causes to champion, especially causes relating to sexual politics. If they achieve todayβs overriding goalβredefining marriage in all fifty statesβthey will soon embark on something else.
Children have been the biggest victims of the sexual revolution.
What might that be? Although it is unlikely to persuade readers who are not already well disposed to the idea, Barbara Bennett Woodhouseβs book provides evidence that a full-fledged βchildrenβs rightsβ movement could be in the offing.
That a movement for childrenβs rights would follow a movement for adult βsexual rightsβ might seem strange, but it shouldnβt. Children have been the biggest victims of the sexual revolution. Today, 36 percent of American kids are born out of wedlock, and suffer appreciably diminished life prospects as a result. Children are now more likely to be subjected to a surfeit of sexual trash, since hard-core pornography has come to receive the same constitutional protection