Same-Sex Marriage: Book List

The right of same-sex couples to marry provoked decades of intense conflict before it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015. Yet some of the most divisive contests shaping the quest for marriage equality occurred not on the culture-war front lines but within the ranks of LGBTQ advocates. Nathaniel Frank tells the dramatic story of how an idea that once seemed unfathomable--and for many gays and lesbians undesirable--became a legal and moral right in just half a century.

Winner of the 2021 ABA Silver Gavel Award. In this book, Eskridge and his coauthor, Christopher R. Riano, offer a panoramic and definitive history of America's marriage equality debate. The authors explore the deeply religious, rabidly political, frequently administrative, and pervasively constitutional features of the debate and consider all angles of its dramatic history. While giving a full account of the legal and political issues, the authors never lose sight of the personal stories of the people involved, or of the central place the right to marry holds in a person's ability to enjoy the dignity of full citizenship.

The fascinating and very moving story of the lovers, lawyers, judges and activists behind the groundbreaking Supreme Court case that led to one of the most important, national civil rights victories in decades--the legalization of same-sex marriage. Through insider accounts and access to key players, this definitive account reveals the dramatic and previously unreported events behind Obergefell v Hodges and the lives at its center. This is a story of law and love--and a promise made to a dying man who wanted to know how he would be remembered. This forceful and deeply affecting narrative chronicles how this grieving man and his lawyer, against overwhelming odds, introduced the most important gay rights case in U.S. history.

This edited collection provides a forum for rigorous analysis of the necessity for both legal and social change with regard to regulation of same-sex relationships and rainbow families, the status of civil partnership as a concept and the lived reality of equality for LGBTQ+ persons. A balanced approach between the competing views of critically analytical rights based theorists and queer and feminist theorists interrogates the current international consensus in this fast moving area. The incrementalist theory whilst offering a methodology for future advances continues to be critiqued. All contributions from differing perspectives expose that even for those jurisdictions who have legalised same-sex marriage, still further and continuous work needs to be done.

The court's decision in Varnum v. Brien made Iowa only the third state in the nation to permit same-sex couples to wed--moderate, midwestern Iowa, years before such left-leaning coastal states as California and New York. And unlike the earlier decisions in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Varnum v. Brien was unanimous and unequivocal. It catalyzed the unprecedented and rapid shift in law and public opinion.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jo Becker follows the historic legal challenge mounted against California's ban on same-sex marriage, a remarkable lawsuit that forced the issue of marriage equality before the highest court in the land. For nearly five years Becker embedded with the lawsuit's plaintiffs, was given free rein within the legal and political war rooms where strategy was plotted, and attended every day of the trial and every appellate argument.

Told in their own voice, this is the story of two women who took their struggle for marriage equality all the way to the Supreme Court--and won. Kris Perry and Sandy Stier are the lead plaintiffs in the team that sued the state of California to restore marriage equality. In alternating voices, From wrangling teenagers and careers to hot flashes at the Supreme Court, this book provides an honest, amusing look at a family that landed in the middle of one of the most important civil rights battles of our era.

A renowned legal scholar tells the definitive story of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the trial that stands as the most potent argument for marriage equality. Speak Now tells the story of a watershed trial that unfolded over twelve tense days in California in 2010. A trial that legalized same-sex marriage in our most populous state. Above all, this book is a work of deep humanity, in which Yoshino brings abstract legal arguments to life by sharing his own story of finding love, marrying, and having children as a gay man-- Winner, Stonewall Book Award

In 2000 Vermont became the first state to grant gay and lesbian couples the right to join in civil unions-a groundbreaking decision that has inspired similar legislation in six states thus far. But it was not an easy victory; the ruling sparked the fiercest political conflict in the state's memory. David Moats was in the thick of it, writing a series of editorials that earned a Pulitzer Prize. Now he tells the intimate stories behind the battle and introduces us to all the key actors in the struggle, including the couples who first filed suit; the lawyers who spent years championing the case; and the only openly gay legislator in Vermont, who ensured victory with an impassioned, deeply personal speech on the House floor at a crucial moment.

Love Unites Us brings together firsthand accounts from the attorneys and advocates who brought the historic cases that secured the freedom to marry for American same-sex couples. It comprises the history of activists' passion and persistence in the struggle for marriage rights for same-sex couples in the United States, told in the words of those who waged the battle.

A history of the fight for same-sex marriage in Canada. Few issues have dominated recent Canadian politics like the legalization of same-sex marriage. As a political correspondent for The Canadian Press, Sylvain Larocque had a front-row seat for this battle in the fight for gay rights in Canada. He recounts the story here on every level, from the legal decisions to the social impact to the political reactions. He analyzes the judgments, laws, and election strategies, providing a behind-the-scenes account of how the institution of marriage, which many regarded as unchangeable, was expanded to include same-sex couples. In exclusive interviews with couples, activists, lawyers, political advisers and ministers, Larocque explores this divisive issue with depth and insight.

Ireland is the first country in the world to extend civil marriage to same sex couples through a public vote. The marriage equality referendum saw record numbers turn out to register their votes including Irish emigrants who returned from around the world to ensure an impressive majority in favour of this constitutional amendment. Utilising published reports, newspaper articles, marriage equality papers and extracts from Dáil debates, this book traces the key legislative and social changes surrounding Irish marriage equality, from the establishment of the advocacy group in 2008 to the referendum on the extension of civil marriage rights to same-sex couples in Ireland in 2015.

Jack Balkin and an all-star cast of legal scholars, sitting as a hypothetical Supreme Court, rewrite the famous 2015 opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry. In eleven incisive opinions, the authors offer the best constitutional arguments for and against the right to same-sex marriage, and debate what Obergefell should mean for the future. The social movement for gay rights and marriage equality is a powerful example of how--through legal imagination and political struggle--arguments once dismissed as "off-the-wall" can later become established in American constitutional law.