Platonic Love in a Colorado Courtroom: Martha Nussbaum, John Finnis, and Plato's Laws in Evans v. Romer

摘要

To the ridicule of the highbrow popular press and the surprise of classical scholars, Platou27s Laws, a work which was mocked, even in antiquity, for its aesthetic frigidity, has enjoyed of late a remarkable fifteen minutes in the sun. In u22expert witnessu22 testimony and affidavits submitted in October 1993 to a Colorado district court in Evans v. Romer, and in subsequent clarificatory (and obfuscatory) articles, three prominent scholars, John Finnis, Martha Nussbaum, and Robert George, vituperatively contended over the potentially pejorative meaning of the word tolmêma at 636c of this lengthy Platonic dialogue. Finnis and George, for their part, argued that this term is inherently aspersive - u22those first guilty of such enormities (tolmêma) were impelled by their slavery to pleasureu22 - and sought to show that this passageu27s characterization of homosexual sodomy as u22contrary to natureu22 (para phusin) demonstrates Platou27s antipathy toward homosexual conduct as well as his affirmation of the moral centrality of wedded heterosexual intercourse. Nussbaum, in rebuttal, claimed that this passage, when translated in a morally u22neutralu22 manner-she prefers u22those who first ventured to do thisu22 - is generally supportive of her (and Platou27s) view of homosexual relations as benign, even salutary.The pretext for these philological exertions in a Denver district courtroom was not, we note with some regret, the judgeu27s abiding interest in the tolmaô verb family, but rather an issue of somewhat greater legal import. Did Amendment 2 to the Colorado Constitution-which forbade any state agency from designating homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual u22orientation, conduct, practices, or relationshipsu22 as the basis for protected legal statusu22 - constitute an impermissible establishment of religion on account of its allegedly irrational hostility toward homosexuals?