Leigh Ann Wheeler, “How Sex Became a Civil Liberty” (Oxford University Press, 2013)

New Books in Law · Apr 6, 2015 · 1h 7m

Leigh Ann Wheeler is professor of history at Binghamton University. Her book How Sex Became a Civil Liberty (Oxford University Press, 2013), examines the role of the American Civil Liberties Union in establishing sexual rights as grounded in the U.S. constitution. Wheeler begins in the bohemian New York with the personal biographies of individuals who established the ACLU for the protection of anti-government speech. Early ACLU leaders displayed sexual proclivities and outlooks outside the mainstream. Beginning with obscenity laws that hampered the distribution of contraceptives and birth…