America's Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage

America's Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage chronicles the evolution of the social movement for same-sex marriage in the United States and examines the political controversies surrounding gay people's quest for access to the civil institution of marriage. The book focuses on the momentous events that began in November 2003, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared unequivocally that the state's conferral of marriage only on opposite-sex couples violated constitutional principles of respect for individual autonomy and equality under law. The decision both triggered a political backlash of national proportion and prompted officials in San Francisco, Multnomah County (OR), Sandoval County (NM), and New Paltz (NY) to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The volume relies on in-depth interviews to provide an insider account of how courts, politicians, and activists maneuver and deal with a cutting-edge social policy issue, as well as real-life narratives about everyday people whom the debate immediately affects.

Chronicles the evolution of the social movement for same-sex marriage in the United States.

Daniel R. Pinello was educated at Williams College (B.A.), New York University (J.D.), and Yale University (Ph.D., political science). His scholarship includes Gay Rights and American Law (2003), The Impact of Judicial-Selection Method on State-Supreme-Court Policy: Innovation, Reaction, and Atrophy (1995), and "Linking Party to Judicial Ideology in American Courts: A Meta-Analysis," Justice System Journal (1999). He is a professor of government at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York and has also taught at Ohio Wesleyan University, the University of New Orleans, and Yale University.