Sexual Orientation and the Law

This law school casebook maps the legal doctrine of sex equality using materials drawn from theory, social science, history, and comparative law. Cases on racism, work, education, athletics, and pregnancy are examined in detail. A chapter titled Sex, Race and Nation expands on the connections between racism and sexism raised throughout. The chapter titled Burdens of Proof equips the litigator with basic technical skills. Also explored are issues that have received less attention, including the law of the family, rape, abortion, prostitution, and pornography. The argument that gay and lesbian rights are sex equality rights is advanced. Sexual harassment in employment and education are discussed in depth.

For much of the 20th century, American gays and lesbians lived in fear that public exposure of their sexualities might cause them to be fired, blackmailed, or even arrested. Today, they are enjoying an unprecedented number of legal rights and protections. Clearly, the tides have shifted for gays and lesbians, but what caused this enormous sea change?

Gay Rights and American Law investigates how American appellate courts dealt with the struggle for lesbian and gay civil rights during the last two decades of the twentieth century. The study is grounded on an exhaustive database of both federal and state cases, rendered between 1981 and 2000, and of the personal attributes of the judges who decided them, as well as the ideological, institutional, and legal environments in which the decisions were situated. The work both explains how diverse factors influenced the adjudication of civil rights claims during a vital era of the homosexual civil rights movement and formulates promising methodologies for the meaningful quantitative empirical study of law.

Why is it so much harder for American same-sex couples to get married than it is for them to adopt children? And why does our military prevent gays from serving openly even though jurisdictions nationwide continue to render such discrimination illegal? Illuminating the conditions that engender these contradictory policies, "Same Sex, Different Politics "explains why gay rights advocates have achieved dramatically different levels of success from one policy area to another.aThe first book to compare results across a wide range of gay rights struggles, this volume explores debates over laws governing military service, homosexual conduct, adoption, marriage and partner recognition, hate crimes, and civil rights. It reveals that in each area, the gay rights movementOCOs achievements depend both on AmericansOCO perceptions of its demands and on the political venue in which the conflict plays out. Adoption policy, for example, generally takes shape in a decentralized system of courts that enables couples to target sympathetic judges, while fights for gay marriage generally culminate in legislation or ballot referenda against which it is easier to mount opposition. Brilliantly synthesizing all the factors that contribute to each kind of outcome, "Same Sex, Different Politics" establishes a new framework for understanding the trajectory of a movement.

The gay rights question is whether the second-class legal status of gay people should be changed. In this book Andrew Koppelman shows the powerful legal and moral case for gay equality, but argues that courts cannot and should not impose it. The Gay Rights Question in Contemporary American Law offers an unusually nuanced analysis of the most pressing gay rights issues.

Sandra Day O'Connor has called the gay rights movement "the first important civil rights struggle of the twenty-first century." Recent court decisions to overturn sodomy laws and to recognize gay marriage have emboldened activists, but have also resulted in a tremendous backlash, not the least of which has been a call for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between members of the opposite sex. Through its historical and legal contextualization of these decisions The Future of Gay Rights in America is essential for understanding an epochal moment in the history of gay rights.

An in-depth examination of the relationship between gay rights, public opinion, and legislation since the late 1800s. * Introductory essay covers issues from the changing notions of morality and the law to the various sides in gay rights disputes * Contains edited excerpts of key legal documents such as Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), in which the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of state laws prohibiting homosexual conduct