From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same-Sex MarriageIf 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. |
Contents
1 World War II to Stonewall 1950s and 1960s | 3 |
2 Stonewall to Bowers 1970s and 1980s | 16 |
3 Hawaii and the Defense of Marriage 1990s | 48 |
4 Baker Vermont and Lawrence 19992003 | 75 |
5 Goodridge Massachusetts and Its Backlash 20032008 | 89 |
6 The Gay Marriage Spring 2009 | 119 |
Maine and Iowa 20092010 | 143 |
8 To the Present | 156 |
Politics and Federalism | 183 |
The Inevitability of Gay Marriage | 193 |
Conclusion | 208 |
Acknowledgments | 221 |
Abbreviations Used in the Notes | 225 |
Notes | 229 |
Bibliography | 260 |
| 266 | |
Other editions - View all
From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same ... Michael J. Klarman No preview available - 2014 |
From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same ... Michael J. Klarman No preview available - 2012 |
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