America's War on Same-Sex Couples and their Families

Presents oral histories of how same-sex-marriage bans impacted gay couples and their children, and how courts rescued those families.

Daniel R. Pinello (Author)

9781107123595, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 September 2016

346 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm, 0.6 kg

'Carefully chronicling the effects of the efforts of 20 states to pass restrictive constitutional amendments known as Super-DOMAs (named after the federal Defense of Marriage Act), the author examines these restrictive constitutional amendments, designed to ban recognition of all forms of relationship rights for same-sex couples. … This is an excellent, well-researched look at the question of whether the judicial system can effectively bring about social change in terms of marriage equality.' W. K. Hall, CHOICE

America's War on Same-Sex Couples and Their Families is a legal, political, and social history of constitutional amendments in twenty American states (with 43 percent of the nation's population) that prohibited government recognition of all forms of relationship rights (marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships) for same-sex couples. Based on 175 interviews with gay and lesbian pairs in Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin, the volume has great human-interest value and chronicles how same-sex couples and their children coped within harsh legal environments. The work ends with a lively explanation of how the federal judiciary rescued these families from their own governments. In addition, the book provides a model of the grassroots circumstances under which harassed minority groups migrate out of oppressive state regimes, together with an estimate of the economic and other costs (to the refugees and their governments) of the flight from persecution.

1. Introduction
2. State judicial interpretations of super-DOMAs
3. The effects of super-DOMAs on same-sex couples
4. The effects of super-DOMAs on families with children being raised by same-sex couples
5. Super-DOMAs and LGBT migration: fight or flight?
6. How the federal courts rescued same-sex couples and their families
7. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]