Awakening : How Gays and Lesbians Brought Marriage Equality to America / Nathaniel Frank.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Frank, Nathaniel, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Same-sex marriage--United States--History.

Same-sex marriage.

Gay culture--United States--History.

Gay culture.

Gay people--Legal status, laws, etc--United States--History.

Gay people.

Gay liberation movement--United States--History.

Gay liberation movement.

Gay rights--United States--History.

Gay rights.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (442 pages) : illustrations, photographs

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

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. Awakening begins in the 1950s, when millions of gays and lesbians were afraid to come out, let alone fight for equality. Across the social upheavals of the next two decades, a gay rights movement emerged with the rising awareness of the equal dignity of same-sex love. A cadre of LGBTQ lawyers soon began to focus on legal recognition for same-sex couples, if not yet on marriage itself. It was only after being pushed by a small set of committed lawyers and grassroots activists that established movement groups created a successful strategy to win marriage in the courts. Marriage equality proponents then had to win over members of their own LGBTQ community who declined to make marriage a priority, while seeking to rein in others who charged ahead heedless of their carefully laid plans. All the while, they had to fight against virulent antigay opponents and capture the American center by spreading the simple message that love is love, ultimately propelling the LGBTQ community—and America—immeasurably closer to justice.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Abbreviations

Prologue

1. “Homosexual Marriage?” The Stirrings of a New Idea

2. “What Was Important Was That We Were a Household” Gay Marriages and the Domestic Partnership Alternative

3. “We Are Criminals in the Eyes of the Law” Sodomy, AIDS, and New Alliances

4. “A Tectonic Shift” Earthquake in Hawaii

5. “The Very Foundations of Our Society Are in Danger” The Defense of Marriage

6. “Here Come the Brides” Laying the Cornerstone in Massachusetts

7. “Power to the People” Rogue Weddings and Ballot Initiatives

8. “A Political Awakening” California’s Proposition 8 Changes the Game

9. “Brick by Brick” Progress in the States

10. “Make More Snowflakes and There Will Be an Avalanche”. Battles over Strategy Come to a Head

11. “Without Any Rational Justification” Proposition 8 on Trial

12. “A Risk Well Worth Taking” Edie Windsor and Winning Marriage in New York

13. “The Nation Is Ready for It” A President and a Country Evolve

14. “Love Survives Death” The Windsor Ruling and its Aftermath

15. “The Responsibility to Right Fundamental Wrongs” A Circuit Split Sets Up a Showdown

16. “It Is So Ordered” Marriage Equality Comes to All Fifty States

Epilogue

Notes

Acknowledgments

Illustration Credits

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Pilot project,eBook available to selected US libraries only

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Sep 2018)

ISBN:

9780674977594

0674977599

9780674977563

0674977564

OCLC:

1054869153