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Who's the Bigot?: Learning from Conflicts over Marriage and Civil Rights Law

by Linda C. McClain (Author)
5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 3 ratings
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Historically, critics of interracial, interfaith, and most recently same-sex marriage have invoked conscience and religious liberty to defend their objections, and often they have been accused of bigotry. Although denouncing and preventing bigotry is a shared political value with a long history, people disagree over who is a bigot and what makes a belief, attitude, or action bigoted. This is evident from the rejoinder that calling out bigotry is intolerant political correctness, even bigotry itself.

In Who's the Bigot?, the eminent legal scholar Linda C. McClain traces the rhetoric of bigotry and conscience across a range of debates relating to marriage and antidiscrimination law. Is "bigotry" simply the term society gives to repudiated beliefs that now are beyond the pale? She argues that the differing views people hold about bigotry reflect competing understandings of what it means to be "on the wrong side of history" and the ways present forms of discrimination resemble or differ from past forms. Furthermore, McClain shows that bigotry has both a backward- and forward-looking dimension. We not only learn the meaning of bigotry by looking to the past, but we also use examples of bigotry, on which there is now consensus, as the basis for making new judgments about what does or does not constitute bigotry and coming to new understandings of both injustice and justice.

By examining charges of bigotry and defenses based on conscience and religious belief in these debates, Who's the Bigot? makes a novel and timely contribution to our understanding of the relationship between religious liberty and discrimination in American life.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0190877200
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0190877200
  3. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  4. Publication date
    March 2, 2020
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    9.3 x 1.2 x 6.4 inches
  7. Print length
    304 pages
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Who's the Bigot? illuminates how "the rhetoric of bigotry" enables inaction in the face of systemic and structural discrimination. McClain's powerful insight thus has much to offer in any examination of social inclusion, whether it be based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender, race, ethnicity or any other ism." -- Professor Tanya Katerí Hernández, Author of Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality

"The book offers meaningful lessons about the rhetoric of bigotry and its puzzles for civil rights struggles, especially in this uniquely polarized period in United States history. Overall, McClain's book makes an original contribution to our understanding of bigotry, especially in struggles at the intersection of family law and civil rights... McClain's important work provides a framework for understanding how rhetoric involving bigotry is being harnessed by both sides of the ongoing legal battles over broad religious exemptions and LGBTQ child welfare... McClain's insightful book builds a persuasive case for why the legal inquiry in struggles over marriage and civil rights should not narrowly focus on whether religious sincerity or appeals to conscience deserve moral condemnation." -- Jordan Blair Woods, University of Arkansas School of Law, Michigan Law Review

"Linda McClain helps us understand our present moment of crisis-prone incivility via a single word: the bigot. Deftly assessing past changes in the American legal recognition of interfaith, interracial and same-sex marriage, as well as desegration and integration, she shows that calling out bigotry has sometimes promoted civility, and yet has also undermined it. This feminist defense of diversity and equality helps to debunk purported moral equivalences, and charts an important way forward for law, religion and public life." -- Katharine Young, Professor of Law, Boston College Law School and author of Constituting Economic and Social Rights (OUP, 2012).

"Linda McClain's book is a meticulously researched and compellingly presented study of moral and political language. She illuminates the different ways in which the term "bigot" has been used in American constitutional law, from the battles over slavery in the nineteenth century to the skirmishes over same sex marriage in the twenty-first." -- Cathleen Kaveny, Balkinization blog

"McClain provides readers a way to understand the meaning, the boundary, and even the accommodation of bigotry. The book would be of interest not just to legal scholars but also to those studying law from a perspective of political theory, sociology, or history. The scope and depth of McClain's book is impressive and she has a lot to teach her readers. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about society's conflicts over marriage and civil rights law." -- Sonu Bedi, author of Private Racism, and Professor in Law and Political Science, Dartmouth College

"This timely, wide-ranging, and historically detailed work invites us to think more deeply about bigotry - what it is, how it has functioned in various debates over marriage, and how those debates in turn shed light on the reality and rhetoric of bigotry. McClain's book is an invaluable contribution to our perspective on these matters." -- John Corvino, author of Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination and What's Wrong With Homosexuality?, Dean, Irvin D. Reid Honors College and Professor of Philosophy, Wayne State University

"An important and clear-minded book by a leading scholar of law and public policy that explores our evolving understanding of bigotry in the context of debates over gay rights and religious liberty. Deeply illuminating." -- Stephen Macedo, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University

"A must read for those who are interested in seeing the modern social psychological understanding of racism applied to American religion." -- Thomas F. Pettigrew, Research Professor of Social Psychology, University of California, Santa Cruz

"Through historical excavation and close readings of primary texts, Linda McClain examines the meaning and use of bigotry over time. By situating us in the thick of past conflicts over equality, McClain shows that views we now repudiate as bigoted were once within the realm of reasonable debate. Her book should be a warning for proponents of equality law today: Labeling one's opponents as bigots may obscure, rather than illuminate, connections between past and present struggles. Instead, by unearthing the similarities in justifications for inequality over time, McClain leaves us better able to appreciate the relationship between struggles for racial equality and struggles for LGBT equality." -- Douglas NeJaime, Anne Urowsky Professor of Law, Yale Law School

"At a time when public discourse is so charged, and the label "bigot" carries enormous emotional and psychological weight, Linda McClain helpfully unpacks the legal provenance of this fraught term. Drawing on a diverse range of contexts - from interracial marriage to the present debate over conscience exemptions - McClain considers what it means, as a matter of law and culture, to characterize someone (and their actions) as bigoted. This is required reading for anyone who wants to understand our polarized society and how we got here." -- Melissa Murray, Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law, NYU School of Law

Book Description

Shows similarities and differences in moral and constitutional controversies over interfaith, interracial, and same-sex marriage

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (March 2, 2020)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0190877200
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0190877200
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.27 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.3 x 1.2 x 6.4 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 3 ratings

Customer reviews

5 out of 5 stars
5 out of 5
3 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

musicmaker
5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening, thought-provoking discussion of bigotry
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2020
Verified Purchase
Linda McClain has written a thought-provoking book about bigotry in American history that seems highly relevant in our current climate of political and racial divisiveness. Through an eye-opening account of the rhetoric of bigotry
and arguments used on both sides of desegregation, the Civil Rights Act, and marriage equality, the author questions what constitutes bigotry and how to address it. I truly enjoyed reading this book and found it enlightening. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand more about this issue.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A different way of looking at the bigotry debate
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2020
Prof. McClain has written an effective analysis and overview of how the charge of bigotry has been used and misused in debates over civil rights for people of color and in the same sex marriage policy debates. The prose is straight forward and doesn't distract from the narrative analysis. What's interesting is that in both of the major examples--the debates over civil rights legislation in the 60s and over same sex marriage in the last 20-30 years--the charge of bigotry has been deployed by those opposed to change as a kind of shield against themselves being accused of bigotry. A solid and approachable scholarly work on the topic.
One person found this helpful
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