Difference between revisions of "William O. Douglas"
(His sarcasm regarding morality: Dr. Peale’s book is punctuated with such noble terms as "truth," "love," and "honesty.") |
(→Pornography: I firmly believe that Fanny Hill is a moral, rather than an immoral, piece of literature.) |
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==Pornography== | ==Pornography== | ||
| − | Douglas justified a famous work of pornography <ref>''Fanny Hill'' ... the thoughts and experiences of a common prostitute [http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/index.asp?document=51] </ref> as "more significant and moral" than Rev. [[Norman Vincent Peale]]'s ''Sin, Sex and Self-Control''. Douglas describes the two books in terms of [[moral equivalence]]: | + | Douglas justified a famous work of pornography <ref>''Fanny Hill'' ... the thoughts and experiences of a common prostitute [http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/index.asp?document=51] </ref> as "more significant and moral" |
| + | <ref>…I firmly believe that ''Fanny Hill'' is a moral, rather than an immoral, piece of literature. In fact, I will go as far as to suggest that it represents a more significant view of morality than is represented by Dr. Peale’s book Sin, Sex and Self-Control.</ref> | ||
| + | than Rev. [[Norman Vincent Peale]]'s ''Sin, Sex and Self-Control''. Douglas describes the two books in terms of [[moral equivalence]]: | ||
| − | :The search for the moral in Fanny Hill is clothed in erotic passages which seem to equate morality with debauchery as far as the general public is concerned. At the same time, Dr. Peale’s book is punctuated with such noble terms as "truth," "love," and "honesty." | + | :The search for the moral in Fanny Hill is clothed in erotic passages which seem to equate morality with debauchery as far as the general public is concerned. At the same time, Dr. Peale’s book is punctuated with such noble terms as "truth," "love," and "honesty." |
==Notes== | ==Notes== | ||
Revision as of 12:13, August 7, 2007
William Orville Douglas (1898-1980) was the longest serving Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in history, remaining on the bench for 36 years. Appointed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Douglas had been a law professor at Yale and Columbia University. Douglas is considered to have been one of the smartest Supreme Court Justices in history.Template:Fact-history He is an example of how a Justice can become increasingly liberal the longer he remains on the Supreme Court.
Justice Douglas wrote in the 1952 case of Zorach v. Clauson, "The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State... Otherwise the state and religion would be aliens to each other-hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly. ... We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being ... When the state encourages religious instruction ... it follows the best of our traditions. For it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their spiritual needs. To hold that it may not would be to find in the Constitution a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe ... We find no constitutional requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion. We cannot read into the Bill of Rights such a philosophy of hostility to religion."
But by the end of Justice Douglas' career in the 1970s, he had become hostile to everything religious and conservative. The future President Gerald Ford even felt compelled to attempt to impeach Douglas while Ford was a congressman. Douglas remained on the bench too long for even his liberal colleagues, and in Douglas' final year on the Supreme Court his colleagues refused to issue opinions in which Douglas was the deciding vote.
Pornography
Douglas justified a famous work of pornography [1] as "more significant and moral" [2] than Rev. Norman Vincent Peale's Sin, Sex and Self-Control. Douglas describes the two books in terms of moral equivalence:
- The search for the moral in Fanny Hill is clothed in erotic passages which seem to equate morality with debauchery as far as the general public is concerned. At the same time, Dr. Peale’s book is punctuated with such noble terms as "truth," "love," and "honesty."
Notes
- ↑ Fanny Hill ... the thoughts and experiences of a common prostitute [1]
- ↑ …I firmly believe that Fanny Hill is a moral, rather than an immoral, piece of literature. In fact, I will go as far as to suggest that it represents a more significant view of morality than is represented by Dr. Peale’s book Sin, Sex and Self-Control.
