Recommended Citation

Walter J. Walsh, The Fearful Symmetry of Gay Rights, Religious Freedom, and Racial Equality, 40 Howard L.J. 513 (1997), https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-articles/816

Authors

Walter J. Walsh, University of Washington School of LawFollow

The Fearful Symmetry of Gay Rights, Religious Freedom, and Racial Equality

Keywords

sexual orientation, discrimination, Julia Cooper Mack

Document Type

Article

Abstract

A decade has now passed since Julia Cooper Mack authored her most controversial judicial opinion, Gay Rights Coalition of Georgetown University Law Center v. Georgetown University. That opinion provoked two acts of Congress aimed at its reversal, newspaper editorials from coast to coast, and over one hundred scholarly authors debating its wisdom. In this short essay, I shall suggest that this extended hermeneutic debate has yet to touch upon the deepest implications of Judge Mack's Georgetown opinion. While recent scholarship on this story praises Judge Mack's unusual ability to reconcile clashing interest groups, a more accurate account might be that she never perceived any true clash of interests.