Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance.

• Author: Christian, Adam

by Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini New York University Press. 174 pages. $21.95.

Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini discuss in this book the enduring role of "sin" in contemporary politics, from Clinton's impeachment to the Christian Coalitions rhetorical assault on homosexuals. A common response has been to urge "tolerance" of practices we might find sinful or morally objectionable. But the concept of religious tolerance, long viewed as a progressive Enlightenment value, has often justified the forms of repression it is intended to prevent by positing an authoritative moral norm--in America, the Judeo-Christian tradition--from which minority groups are "permitted" to deviate.

Pursuing a libertarian line of thought that defies the conventional divide between liberal and conservative, the authors draw an extended analogy between...