Lawrence vs. Texas on Personal Animus as Basis for Legislation: Is this a Critique of Expressionism?

Lawerence v. Texas found that personal animus is not a sufficient reason to justify regulation of an activity; a personal (preferential?) or moral judgment of an activity does not render it subject to government legislation.  

This finding seems to recall, and may be equivalent to, the idea of mine that the expressive function of the law ought to be of a lower priority than other legal functions, especially policy outcome.  In general, this principle on which this case was decided seems to me to be similar to the derision for the expressive function of political action that I have often articulated.

Constitutional Law of Gay Marriage and Function of Focus: Expressive, Symbolic, Virtue of Character

Some people who favor gay marriage--including top constitutional lawyers, who don't just favor it but believe it to be a constitutional imperative of required by justice--still take issue with the reasoning of the Obergefell decision.  It continues in a shaky line of vague, seemingly ad hoc jurisprudence, that is unnecessarily controversial and therefore sub-optimally/maximally legitimate.

Instead, they argue, of inventing/discovering/articulating a new right to a new or changed entity based on a new protected class, base the articulated/established right on the more settled law of sex discrimination.  This has the added benefit of according/cohering more with common sense: gay relationships are no worse or better than straight ones, cause it doesn't matter if one partners with a man or a woman, i.e. the person's sex doesn't matter/shouldn't matter/be relevant/is relevant.  

And while I have no knowledge at all about the legal path this case and preceding cases in the larger effort to get to this point, I can't help but wonder if the fact that the legal option actually pursued (other than tailored to Kennedy's prejudices) is related to the seemingly newly ascendant focus on symbolism and language and the expressive function of political acts.

Is there a connection between the focus on symbolism and language and the possible legal cases/paths of reasoning on gay marriage, i.e. the court could have legalized gay marriage nationwide using less controversial legal reasoning (sex discrimination) but which would not have out right made a case for gay people?

--

They're focusing on the expressive function of the law

, but there's also the focus on the agents involved

and basing one's political position on prioritizing the ability to tell the virtuous from the vicious, or to express/communicate/show-illustrate/declare/call attention to for others the virtue (or otherwise) (or vicious character) of others.

Conservatives' and Liberals' Moral Psychology

This is an old column but I came across when someone else things to it as part of a response to one of his current columns on ideological diversity.  It discusses how liberals give us to charity than conservatives and the implications of that, in the context of the public policy debate in which Liberals are widely agreed to be more generous public spending/public resources/public funds/the budget to the downtrodden.  

I've read/heard elsewhere that this finding disappears when you control for religion, so it's religion and not conservatism that makes people more charitable, and it's in religion and not liberalism that makes them less so. (check to see if this is in the column, and check to see if it's true)

More recently, it's been discussed some from the unearthing of a 1981 quote from Bernie Sanders that he does not believe in charity.

This might seem to accord with my analysis on liberals and conservatives and their differences on collective action problems: liberals favor coordinated solutions to collection action problems and conservatives don't, in general. 

Maybe this is because liberals overestimate/overprotect free-riding/action of unenlightened self interest, so they don't believe uncoordinated action can solve it, and maybe it's because liberals see themselves and those around them, who are also highly likely to be liberals, free-ride/act of unenlightened self-interest frequently/most of the time, i.e. that liberals free-ride/act on it unenlightened self-interest more than liberals do.

Maybe because they're less generous slash more vicious/less virtuous, or maybe it's because they have a different technical/positive view/belief, i.e. they believe and uncoordinated solution is less likely to happen, and are just taking the rational action rashly taking the action consistent with that belief.

Test both of those 

Maybe liberals just think that they don't have to do it, and it will even get done more efficiently by government.

The pros think they just should not have to do it.

Are they doing it out of defensive free-riding or initial free-riding?

Bleeding Heart Tightwads - NYTimes.com