LEADER 00000cam 2200000 a 4500
001 ocn786129972
003 OCoLC
005 20121005043718.0
008 120606t20132013nyua b 001 0 eng
010 2012023121
020 9780199922109|qhardback
020 0199922101|qhardback
035 (OCoLC)786129972
035 (OCoLC)786129972
035 (OCoLC)786129972
040 DLC|beng|cDLC|dYDX|dYDXCP|dBTCTA|dBDX|dOCLCO|dVKC|dCGP
042 pcc
043 n-us---
049 CKEA
050 00 KF539|b.K53 2013
082 00 346.7301/68|223
084 LAW013000|aPOL029000|2bisacsh
100 1 Klarman, Michael J.
245 10 From the closet to the altar :|bcourts, backlash, and the
struggle for same-sex marriage /|cMichael J. Klarman.
264 1 New York :|bOxford University Press,|c[2013]
264 4 |c©2013
300 xii, 276 pages :|billustrations ;|c25 cm
336 text|btxt|2rdacontent
337 unmediated|bn|2rdamedia
338 volume|bnc|2rdacarrier
504 Includes bibliographical references and index.
505 0 World War II to Stonewall (1950s and 1960s) -- Stonewall
to Bowers (1970s and 1980s) -- Hawaii and the "Defense of
Marriage" (1990s) -- Baker (Vermont) and Lawrence (1999-
2003) -- Goodridge (Massachusetts) and its backlash (2003-
2008) -- The gay marriage Spring (2009) -- Backlash
(Again) : Maine and Iowa (2009-2010) -- To the present --
Why backlash? Part 1 : Courts and public opinion -- Why
backlash? Part 2 : Politics and federalism -- Looking to
the future : the inevitability of gay marriage.
520 "Same-sex marriage, a politically and culturally untenable
idea only a quarter century ago, has become one of the
most controversial issues in American life. Social
conservatives are adamantly opposed to it and vote-
conscious liberal politicians tiptoe around it, but an
emerging majority's support for it makes it seem all but
inevitable. While most observers seem to think that the
legalization of gay marriage across the nation will occur
at some point in the near future, in the meantime it
continues to generate a sharp political backlash that has
helped its opponents score political victories (even if
they prove to be short-lived). If most young people
support gay marriage, and if there are clear indicators
that a majority of the population will support it in the
very near future, why is the backlash so strong? As
Michael Klarman will show in From the Closet to the Altar,
it is because its proponents have adopted a court-centered
approach for advancing their cause. In many states,
advocates have taken to the courts and argued that bans on
gay marriage are denials of civil rights. They have
followed the path of earlier civil rights advocates, who
also chose the court rather than the political arena as a
forum to decide issues. But as Klarman shows, this tactic
comes with clear costs. Using the courts to leapfrog
public opinion can actually set a cause back because court
decisions generate backlashes. Usually, judges are neither
elected nor beholden to public opinion, and they are
easily pegged as unaccountable elites by opponents.
Klarman, who has examined virtually every state-level
judicial decision and all of the legislative attempts to
overturn same-sex marriage, contends that the movement has
in many respects not only hurt its own cause by generating
populist backlash, but has created a countervailing social
movement that works against progressive causes on a host
of other issues. Given the irreversible tectonic shift in
public opinion regarding the issue, he argues that it will
occur anyway. By providing such fuel to its opponents
(much like with Roe v. Wade), the movement is in danger of
creating a powerful countermovement that will use the
issue for proponents of gay rights for years to come.
Concise yet sweeping in scope, From the Closet to the
Altar is not only a worthy successor to his Bancroft Prize
-winning From Jim Crow to Civil Rights, it will reshape
how we think about the issue"--|cProvided by publisher.
520 "Bancroft Prize-winning historian and legal expert Michael
Klarman here offers an illuminating and engaging account
of modern litigation over same-sex marriage. After looking
at the treatment of gays in the decades after World War II
and the birth of the modern gay rights movement with the
Stonewall Rebellion in 1969, Klarman describes the key
legal cases involving gay marriage and the dramatic
political backlashes they ignited. He examines the Hawaii
Supreme Court's ruling in 1993, which sparked a vast
political backlash--with more than 35 states and Congress
enacting defense-of-marriage acts--and the Massachusetts
decision in Goodridge in 2003, which inspired more than 25
states to adopt constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.
Klarman traces this same pattern--court victory followed
by dramatic backlash--through cases in Vermont, California,
and Iowa, taking the story right up to the present. He
also describes some of the collateral political damage
caused by court decisions in favor of gay marriage--Iowa
judges losing their jobs, Senator Majority Leader Tom
Daschle losing his seat, and the possibly dispositive
impact of gay marriage on the 2004 presidential election.
But Klarman also notes several ways in which litigation
has accelerated the coming of same-sex marriage: forcing
people to discuss the issue, raising the hopes and
expectations of gay activists, and making other reforms
like civil unions seem more moderate by comparison. In the
end, Klarman discusses how gay marriage is likely to
evolve in the future, predicts how the U.S. Supreme Court
might ultimately resolve the issue, and assesses the costs
and benefits of activists' pursuing social reforms such as
gay marriage through the courts"--|cProvided by publisher.
650 0 Same-sex marriage|xLaw and legislation|zUnited States
|xHistory.
650 0 Gay couples|xLegal status, laws, etc.|zUnited States
|xHistory.
650 0 Same-sex marriage|xLaw and legislation|zUnited States
|xStates.
650 0 Civil unions|xLaw and legislation|zUnited States.
938 YBP Library Services|bYANK|n7604965
938 Baker and Taylor|bBTCP|nBK0011114892
938 Brodart|bBROD|n103109412
994 92|bCKE
Newington, Lucy Robbins Welles Library - Adult Department
|
346.73016 KLARMAN |
Check Shelf |
|