Debbie Nathan on How Sex Became a Civil Liberty

How Sex Became a Civil Liberty is Leigh Ann Wheeler's dense but fascinating account of the ACLU's efforts to bring sex under the purview of the Bill of Rights. Wheeler, a Binghamton University historian, has combed vast archives, including personal correspondence of the ACLU's founders and decades of files from the national office and local affiliates. From these papers, Debbie Nathan reports in her review, Wheeler has assembled a story about men and women working through their own sexual passions and contradictions as they shaped a legal and political practice for the entire country.