We’re back with knees and gay marriage. And constitutional scholar Lori Ringhand. In the battle between recliners and knee defenders, Joe tells us the real enemy is the airline who has sold the same space twice. Somehow nose-punching, rapid window shade flipping, and the high arctic figure into the discussion. Turning to Judge Posner’s smackdown of midwestern marriage bans, we start with style: is there such a thing as too much smack? Then we turn to the really interesting bit, Posner’s reimagining of judicial scrutiny of discrimination. Also: speed traps.

This show’s links:


Lori Ringhand’s faculty profile, books, and articles
Episode 31: Knee Defender, in which we first spoke of the airplane seat reclining controversy
Neil Buchanan, Airplane Seatbacks, the Coase Theorem, and Simplistic Solutions to Difficult Questions
Josh Barro, Don’t Want Me to Recline My Airline Seat? You Can Pay Me
Katia Hetter, Seat Recline Fight Diverts Another Flight
Baskin v. Bogan, Judge Posner’s opinion for the Seventh Circuit striking down marriage bans in Indiana and Wisconsin
Robicheaux v. Caldwell, Judge Feldman’s opinion upholding Louisiana’s marriage ban
Mark Joseph Stern, Judge Posner’s Gay Marriage Opinion Is a Witty, Deeply Moral Masterpiece
Christian Turner, 404: Argument Not Found
Brown v. Board of Education
What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said, Jack Balkin ed.
Episode 30: A Filled Milk Caste, in which we discuss United States v. Carolene Products
Windsor v. United States (the Second Circuit opinion that led to the Supreme Court case) and SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Abbott Laboratories (a Ninth Circuit case), each deciding to apply heightened scrutiny to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation
Romer v. Evans, nominally using the deferential rational basis standard to strike down a state’s constitutional prohibition on any governmental efforts to protect gays from discrimination
Special Guest: Lori Ringhand.