Synopses & Reviews
No one could have predicted that the night of September 17, 1998, would be anything but routine in Houston, Texas. Even the call to police that a black man was "going crazy with a gun" was hardly unusual in this urban setting. Nobody could have imagined that the arrest of two men for a minor criminal offense would reverberate in American constitutional law, exposing a deep malignity in our judicial system and challenging the traditional conception of what makes a family. Indeed, when Harris County sheriff's deputies entered the second-floor apartment, there was no gun. Instead, they reported that they had walked in on John Lawrence and Tyron Garner having sex in Lawrence's bedroom. So begins Dale Carpenter's "gripping and brilliantly researched" , a work nine years in the making that transforms our understanding of what we thought we knew about , the landmark Supreme Court decision of 2003 that invalidated America's sodomy laws. Drawing on dozens of interviews, Carpenter has taken on the "gargantuan" task of extracting the truth about the case, analyzing the claims of virtually every person involved. Carpenter first introduces us to the interracial defendants themselves, who were hardly prepared "for the strike of lightning" that would upend their lives, and then to the Harris County arresting officers, including a sheriff's deputy who claimed he had "looked eye to eye" in the faces of the men as they allegedly fornicated. Carpenter skillfully navigates Houston's complex gay world of the late 1990s, where a group of activists and court officers, some of them closeted themselves, refused to bury what initially seemed to be a minor arrest. The author charts not only the careful legal strategy that Lambda Legal attorneys adopted to make the case compatible to a conservative Supreme Court but also the miscalculations of the Houston prosecutors who assumed that the nation's extant sodomy laws would be upheld. Masterfully reenacting the arguments that riveted spectators and Justices alike in 2003, then reaches a point where legal history becomes literature, animating a Supreme Court decision as few writers have done. In situating within the larger framework of America's four-century persecution of gay men and lesbians, compellingly demonstrates that gay history is an integral part of our national civil rights story.
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"An important and scary book." Larry Kramer
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"A terrific book. Generations of future readers of Dale Carpenter's powerful, enveloping narrative will shake their heads in disbelief that, until , civil rights stopped at the bedroom door." Larry Kramer
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"Dale Carpenter's does for what Richard Kluger's and Anthony Lewis's did for and . It tells the story of a profoundly dramatic and important Supreme Court decision in a way that brings to life the stakes, the participants, the justices, and the drama of the constitutional controversy. It is a landmark achievement." David Cole The New York Review of Books
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"Dale Carpenter has gifted us with a landmark book to dramatize a landmark case. Gripping and brilliantly researched, takes us on a journey of hate and contempt, activism and dedication that finally led to the legalization of our right to love, to pursue intimate pleasures within the privacy of our homes. Everybody concerned about women's rights, gay rights, civil rights and human rights will be informed and energized by this important splendid book." Scott Lemieux lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com
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"Starred review. In compelling and eminently readable prose--as gripping as any detective novel--Carpenter reveals the details behind the famous legal battle. ...It is a story, according to the author, that involves the misuse of authority, the cowardice of elected state-court judges who rebuffed the defendants' legal claims, and the refusal of legislators to repeal a dubious and odious law. An important book about a landmark case." Dahlia Lithwick New Yorker
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"An important and scary book." Booklist
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"[An] important new book... [A] chronicle that peels the Lawrence case back through layers of carefully choreographed litigation and tactical appeals, back to the human protagonists we never really got to know, and back again through centuries of laws criminalizing "unnatural" sexual activity." New York Times
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"An important and scary book." Dahlia Lithwick New Yorker
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"[An] informative, highly readable account of a case that has been likened in significance to Brown v. Board of Education and Gideon v. Wainwright." Don Franzen Los Angeles Review of Books
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" is a stirring and richly detailed account of Lawrence v. Texas, the momentous 2003 decision that overturned Bowers [v. Hardwick].
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"Starred review. [In Flagrant Conduct] Carpenter presents an engrossing depiction of a pivotal case in 21st-century American jurisprudence." David Oshinsky New York Times
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"Dale Carpenter's excellent new book, is not only an in-depth study of the complicated background of the case, but also a highly informative, detailed, even thrilling account of how the Supreme Court arguments reshaped American law, possibly even inadvertently leading to the legalization of same-sex marriage. ...Carpenter moves into John Grisham territory as a group of rebels with a very good cause...mount their battle against not only the Texas law but all existing state sodomy laws. Carpenter's tale of the arrest -- and how it affected these men's lives-- is fascinating, but his recounting of the Supreme Court hearings is a fine piece of dramatic reporting that sharpens the drama and presents the legal issues and personalities with clarity." June Sawyers Booklist
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"Easily the best book of its kind since Richard Kluger's was published in 1975, is a rare combination of virtues. It is a gripping story of individuals fighting against systematic injustices intended for a general audience, but it is also a theoretically sophisticated work that represents an important contribution to legal scholarship." Larry Kramer
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" provides a rich, meticulous, and fascinating account of the most important constitutional decision so far on the status of gays and lesbians in American society." Kirkus Reviews
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"Starred review. [In ] Carpenter presents an engrossing depiction of a pivotal case in 21st-century American jurisprudence." Michael Bronkski San Francisco Chronicle
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"Dale Carpenter's presents a micro-history of a Texas case that against all odds reached the Untied States Supreme Court and resulted in the constitutional abolition of anti-sodomy laws.... Living constitutionalists will look to evolving societal norms and the compulsion of precedent, including , to argue that the time has come to recognize a constitutional right to marry whom you will." Publishers Weekly
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"An important and scary book." Geoffrey R. Stone, author of Perilous Times
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"... an exceptional book, in the tradition of Anthony Lewis's (1964), expertly guiding the reader from the moment of the arrest through the culminating oral argument in the Supreme Court. is also a moving and deeply humane study of the law's effect on ordinary people." Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt
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"In his sinuous, elegant new book, , Dale Carpenter... gives this landmark case the bold, intimate face it has long deserved, even as he conducts a captivating, forensic tour of its legal subterrain. The result, from its first pages, is a book that sets a benchmark for the writing of civil-rights history, a book with all the stirring social consciousness and staying power of Taylor Branch's trilogy, ." The Nation
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"Carpenter brings to it all a novelist's gift for character and a dramatist's for scene. In the gripping chapter on the oral arguments at the Court, Paul Smith, the petitioners' counsel, is depicted as memorably as Gregory Peck in ." Kirk Swinehart The Daily Beast
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"Superb and memorable.... Dale Carpenter's assiduous unearthing of the case's early history...highlights how every great constitutional decision owes its existence to obscure individuals whose crucial contributions proved more essential to the final outcome than anything in the legal briefs or oral arguments." Kirk Swinehart The Daily Beast
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"An important and scary book." David Cole The New York Review of Books
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"The thrust of Signorile's urgent message is cogent and heartfelt...A cautionary, timely gay rights manifesto with teeth." —
Kirkus "Signorile has never been more tactical and inspiring as he is in It’s Not Over, and he knows he is not just inspiring the choir anymore." — New York Journal of Books
“Enlightening and compelling, It’s Not Over is a trenchant book founded on solid evidence that reveals the truth about the current struggle for LGBT equality. Through rich detail and powerful stories, Signorile shows why we can’t let our intensity falter, and he offers an incisive, exhilarating blueprint for the future.” — Martina Navratilova
“For 25 years, Michelangelo Signorile has been one of America's most incisive critics and influential activists in the movement for gay equality, and It’s Not Over demonstrates he is better than ever. The new book is a penetrating look at one of the great social movements of our time and the challenges that lay before it. With detailed reporting and razor-sharp analysis, Signorile exposes the dangerous triumphalism that has taken hold. He reveals the bigotry and bias still deeply embedded in the media, the political establishment, and throughout American culture. And he provides an illuminating, stirring plan of action to vanquish it.” — Glenn Greenwald, author of No Place to Hide
“This page-turner cuts through illusions and lays bare the unique and ongoing oppressions lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people face. With great compassion, Michelangelo Signorile knits all of us who support equality together as a community with a purpose and a real-world plan for achieving our goals. Read this book, please, and use it.” — Kate Bornstein, author of A Queer and Pleasant Danger
“Unflinching, uncompromising, It’s Not Over is a call to arms. Signorile describes the full breadth and scope of the LGBT struggle. Indeed, the fight for equality, and for freedom for all members of the LGBT community is not over. This landmark work by an irreplaceable writer vividly illustrates why.” — José Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, filmmaker, and founder of Define American
“It’s Not Over provides an eye-opening reminder of the deep roots of hatred and prejudice as well as the critical role played by LGBT activists. While the arc of the moral universe does indeed bend toward justice, Signorile is right — we cannot let ourselves be lulled into a false sense of security that we are at the end of the journey.” — Roberta Kaplan, lead attorney, U.S. v. Windsor
“Amid great progress and celebration, Signorile strikes a cautionary tone: homophobia is alive and well today, and the fight for equality is far from won. In fact, complacency and apathy are the biggest allies of well-organized conservatives who refuse to surrender their bigotry and hate. This astute book primes us to tackle the unfinished business ahead.” — Markos Moulitsas, founder, Daily Kos
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" " June Sawyers Booklist
Synopsis
Equal parts investigative legal history and compelling detective tale, Flagrant Conduct is the still-untold story of Lawrence v. Texas, the landmark Supreme Court decision that promises to be the Brown v. Board of gay rights. From the 1998 arrest of Houston defendants John Lawrence and Tyron Garner, charged with sodomy in Lawrence's own bedroom, to the stirring Supreme Court ruling five years later, Flagrant Conduct is an insightful work of formidable scholarship.
Drawing from dozens of new interviews that yield surprising new evidence, Dale Carpenter reexamines the motives of almost every character involved, from the arresting police officers to the brilliant gay-rights attorneys, whose maneuverings brought the case to national attention, to the nine Supreme Court justices, whose predispositions are on full display. With the legal battle over gay marriage looming, this first complete history of the case, which expanded the legal rights of millions of gay and lesbian Americans, could not be timelier.
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One of the most groundbreaking works of gay history since And the Band Played On and Gay New York.
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A 2012 Notable Book "A real-life detective story that reveals the drama behind the scenes of a great Supreme Court victory for human rights." --Linda Greenhouse
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A 2012 New York Times Notable Book
"A real-life detective story that reveals the drama behind the scenes of a great Supreme Court victory for human rights." —Linda Greenhouse
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One of the most prominent voices on LGBT rights boldly confronts the forces still standing in the way of full equality, and charts a course toward victory.
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One of the most prominent voices on politics and gay civil rights boldly confronts the hidden forces still standing in the way of full equality, and charts a hopeful course toward victory. Marriage equality is gaining ground in dozens of states. The NFL has drafted its first openly gay player. For many Americans, it can start to feel as if the fight has been won. But as longtime advocate Michelangelo Signorile argues in this provocative and timely book, these hard-won successes are only part of the picture. Signorile dissects Washington, the entertainment industry, and the media to reveal the hidden obstacles that still stand in the way of progress, and documents signs of hope in schools and communities across the country. Telling the stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans who still face discrimination in surprising and often subtle ways—and who are finding the strength to fight back—Signorile reports from the front lines of a battle that has entered a new phase, with new priorities, new rules, and new dangers.
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From the author of the groundbreaking bestseller Queer in America, a myth-shattering look at the present and future of gay rights Marriage equality has surged across the country. Closet doors have burst open in business, entertainment, and even major league sports. But as longtime advocate Michelangelo Signorile argues in his most provocative book yet, the excitement of such breathless change makes this moment more dangerous than ever. Puncturing the illusion that victory is now inevitable, Signorile marshals stinging evidence that an age-old hatred, homophobia, is still a basic fact of American life. He exposes the bigotry of the brewing religious conservative backlash against LGBT rights and challenges the complacency and hypocrisy of supposed allies in Washington, the media, and Hollywood.
Not just a wake-up call, It's Not Over is also a battle plan for the fights to come in the march toward equality. Signorile tells the stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans who have refused to be merely tolerated, or worse, and are demanding full acceptance. And he documents signs of hope in schools and communities finding new ways to combat ignorance, bullying, and fear. Urgent and empowering, It's Not Over is a necessary book from one of our most electrifying voices.
About the Author
MICHELANGELO SIGNORILE is the best-selling author of Queer in America. He is the host of the Sirius XM radio show The Michelangelo Signorile Show and an editor-at-large of Huffington Post Gay Voices. An award-winning journalist, Signorile has written for dozens of magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, New York Magazine, Salon, and the Village Voice.