What to do about the gay bathhouse? Can police shut them down merely for morality's sake? The author begins by observing that S&M (a topic raised in a complaining email he uses to segue into his discussion) is technically a legal assault, one that is not permitted even if the victim has given consent. This analysis has probably been complicated by the holding in Lawrence, such that "manipulating the criminal code to encompass consensual S/M conduct is at best an exercise in squeamishness driving public policy, rather than reason." He then moves on to consider gay bathhouses, which superficially might appear to give a more solid justification for police interference in sexual activity, given a the relationship between some forms of gay sex and HIV infection. But even this is not as simple as it appears. "Public officials have a duty to actually improve citizens' health and welfare, not to appear to be doing so while causing harm." Bathhouses offer some means to offer outreach to exactly those persons most likely to engage in risky behaviors, which no one assumes would cease were the bathhouse to close. "As with the prosecution of consensual sexual violence, using the power of the state to implement policies which are not evidence based but which will play well in the political marketplace is an ill-advised strategy which can ultimately lead only to higher rates of disease, whether biologic or social.

The author examines the historical and doctrinal background of the “gay panic defense,” a variety of strategies that suggest a criminal defendant should be excused or justified if his violent actions were in response to a (homo)sexual advance. Drawing lessons from the Matthew Shepard trial, this article supports generally permitting gay panic defense arguments, since they are less harmful when made to a jury in open court than when forced underground. It proposes strategies for prosecutors to minimize homophobic juror bias and foster enlightened deliberations.

Prior to 2000, twenty-one states enacted statutes "criminalizing that risks the transmission of HIV or AIDS, either sexually or through tissues such as blood or semen." McArthur suggests that the rationale underlying such statutes -- that infection with HIV was then a virtual death sentence -- is no longer applicable due to improved drug treatments. In the new environment, sentences such as the twenty-five years handed down in Iowa to a man who did not infect his sex partner, make little sense. Another variable he suggests should be reflected in the just handling of such cases is whether the carrier has a nonresistant strain of the virus -- and thus responsive to drug regimes -- or one of the recently document resistant varieties, since this reflects the nature of the harm to which the victim is being exposed. The author argues that these outdated laws, rather than amended to reflect these changes, should instead be repealed, and that the necessary work of protecting society from deliberate and negligent transmission can be handled through existing criminal statutes.

The heart of this book is an exhaustive study of the two sodomy cases, Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) and the case that overruled it, Lawrence v. Texas (2003). Richards emphasizes the role of the swing votes in the two cases: Justice Powell, whose change of mind resulted in the ruling upholding the Georgia sodomy law in Bowers, and Justice Kennedy, who wrote the compelling majority opinion in Lawrence. The book also considers the abortion and contraception cases that established the privacy doctrine on which Lawrence is grounded, and the implications of Lawrence for other issues, particularly same-sex marriage. A final chapter considers the nature of judicial review and places Lawrence and the struggle for LGBT rights in the context of other landmark cases.

This article reviews 14 homicide cases in California from the years 1949 and 2000 that involved a “homosexual advance” defense. The author expostulates “four classic scripts of homosexuality” – the effeminate, the sick or mentally ill, sexually predatory, and violent, and considers how each figured in the homicide cases involving the homosexual advance defense. Finally, the prevalence of the four scripts in the popular press over the same time period is examined, and the author concludes that the scripts have survived longer in the legal setting than in the popular culture.