Traditional Marriage on Trial: The Supreme Court, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Fate of Secular Argumentation

2015 ◽  
pp. csv100
Author(s):  
Jenna Reinbold
Author(s):  
E. Patrick Johnson

This chapter probes the narrators’ deep and enduring emotional and romantic attachments to other women, primarily by focusing on stories of dating and marriage. Johnson’s interlocutors recall: stories of how they met their partners, memories of particular dates, their family’s responses to their relationships, and, for some of them, how and when they decided to pursue marriage. Importantly, Johnson notes that all of these interviews took place before the Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage across the nation in 2015. Despite the legal limits of partnership in Southern states, several of these women chose to remain in the region. Their choices reflect the need to think expansively about the possibilities for queer life for Black women in the South.


2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (2 & 3) ◽  
pp. 2005
Author(s):  
Ronalda Murphy

The Reference re Same-Sex Marriage1 is not a major opinion on the rights of same-sex couples in Canada, but it is nonetheless an important and fascinating case. There are only a few lines that are about the “rights” of same-sex couples. Did the Supreme Court of Canada “duck” the issue? Was the Court carefully gauging how much or little political capital it had and making a political decision to say as little as possible on this topic? The Court certainly displayed strategic brilliance, but it did not do so in the name of avoiding the “political” hot topic of same-sex marriage. It is factually difficult to maintain the view that the Supreme Court of Canada is loath to enter into this political debate. It has been the lead social institution in Canada in terms of responding to the claims of gays and lesbians to equality in law,2 and it has never been shy of dealing with topics simply because they involve controversial political issues.3 Rather, the Court’s brilliance lies in its minimalist and almost weary tone. This approach had the effect of taking the wind out of the sails of those opposed to same-sex marriage: the same-sex advocates definitely win the constitutional race, but they do so because according to the Supreme Court, there is no provincial constitutional headwind that can stop them. In short, provinces can complain all they want about the federal position in favour of same-sex marriage, but the wedding will go on despite and over their objections to the ceremony.


2021 ◽  
pp. 86-101
Author(s):  
Michael J. Rosenfeld

Chapter 6 describes two important breakthroughs in the courts for gay rights. In 1996 the U.S. Supreme Court decided Romer v. Evans in favor of gay plaintiffs from Colorado who had had their rights reduced by a voter referendum. The Supreme Court upheld state court rulings which had overturned the referendum. The Romer decision, written by Anthony Kennedy, was the first Supreme Court decision to affirmatively defend the rights of gay people. In the fall of 1996 in Hawaii a same-sex marriage trial, Baehr v. Miike, showed for the first time that the opponents of marriage equality had no scientific or empirical basis for preventing same-sex marriages from being recognized. The marriage plaintiffs won in court, but the voters of Hawaii reinstated the same-sex marriage ban. Hawaii did not become a marriage equality state until 2013.


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