In this book the author aims her intellectual firepower at a key source of opposition to gay equality: the politics of disgust. She argues that disgust has been among the fundamental motivations of those who are fighting for a variety of legal restrictions affecting lesbian and gay citizens. When confronted with the thought of homosexuality, she writes, they experience "a deep aversion akin to that inspired by bodily wastes, slimy insects, and spoiled food, and then cite that very reaction to justify a range of legal restrictions, from sodomy laws to bans on same-sex marriage." Leon Kass, who was head of the President's Council on Bioethics during the Bush administration, even argues that repugnance has an inherent "wisdom," steering us away from destructive choices." The author believes that the politics of disgust must be confronted directly, for it subverts the basic principle of the equality of all citizens under the law. "It says that the mere fact that you happen to make me want to vomit is reason enough for me to treat you as a social pariah, denying you some of your most basic entitlements as a citizen." In its place she observes and supports an emerging "politics of humanity" based not merely on respect, but on something akin to love, an imaginative engagement with others and an active effort to see the world from their perspectives as fellow human beings." "For too long, overtly and covertly, disgust has shaped constitutional thinking regarding the rights of lesbian and gay Americans. Recent landmark decisions suggest that the Court's views are shifting toward a humanity-centered vision, and the author's arguments will attempt to advance that cause.

After the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, American flags appeared everywhere. Is patriotism a good response at a time of national crisis? What does it mean for us to think of ourselves as a nation first? With our connections to the world growing stronger and more vital than ever, Martha C. Nussbaum argues that we should distrust conventional patriotism as parochial and instead see ourselves first of all as "citizens of the world." Sixteen prominent writers and thinkers respond, including Benjamin R. Barber, Sissela Bok, Nathan Glazer, Robert Pinsky, Elaine Scarry, Amartya Sen, and Michael Walzer. NEW DEMOCRACY FORUM A series of short paperback originals exploring creative solutions to our most urgent national concerns. The series editors (for Boston Review ), Joshua Cohen and Joel Rogers, aim to foster politically engaged, intellectually honest, and morally serious debate about fundamental issues-both on and off the agenda of conventional politics.