Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality

Katherine Franke (Columbia University), Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality (N.Y.U. Press 2015).

"Wedlocked turns to history to compare today’s same-sex marriage movement to the experiences of newly emancipated black people in the mid-nineteenth century, when they were able to legally marry for the first time. Maintaining that the transition to greater freedom was both wondrous and perilous for newly emancipated people, Katherine Franke relates stories of former slaves’ involvements with marriage and draws lessons that serve as cautionary tales for today’s marriage rights movements. While 'be careful what you wish for' is a prominent theme, they also teach us how the rights-bearing subject is inevitably shaped by the very rights they bear, often in ways that reinforce racialized gender norms and stereotypes."

—Publisher's description

Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality

Debbie Cenziper & Jim Obergefell, Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality (William Morrow 2016).

"The fascinating and very moving story of the lovers, lawyers, judges and activists behind the groundbreaking Supreme Court case that led to one of the most important, national civil rights victories in decades—the legalization of same-sex marriage." 
—Publisher's description 

Fragmented Citizens: The Changing Landscape of Gay and Lesbian Lives

Stephen M. Engel, Fragmented Citizens: The Changing Landscape of Gay and Lesbian Lives (N.Y.U. Press 2016).

"In Fragmented Citizens, Stephen M. Engel contends that the present moment in gay and lesbian rights in America is indeed one of considerable advancement and change—but that there is still much to be done in shaping American institutions to recognize gays and lesbians as full citizens. With impressive scope and fascinating examples, Engel traces the relationship between gay and lesbian individuals and the government from the late nineteenth century through the present. Engel shows that gays and lesbians are more accurately described as fragmented citizens. Despite the marriage ruling, Engel argues that LGBT Americans still do not have full legal protections against workplace, housing, family, and other kinds of discrimination. There remains a continuing struggle of the state to control the sexuality of gay and lesbian citizens—they continue to be fragmented citizens."
—Publisher's description

Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality

Katherine Franke (Columbia University), Wedlocked: The Perils of Marriage Equality (NYU Press, 2015).

"Wedlocked turns to history to compare today’s same-sex marriage movement to the experiences of newly emancipated black people in the mid-nineteenth century, when they were able to legally marry for the first time. Like same-sex couples today, freed African-American men and women experienced a shift in status from outlaws to in-laws, from living outside the law to finding their private lives organized by law and state licensure. Their experiences teach us the potential and the perils of being subject to legal regulation: rights—and specifically the right to marriage—can both burden and set you free." 

—Publisher's description

Forcing the Spring: Inside the Fight for Marriage Equality

Jo Becker. Forcing the Spring (The Penguin Press, 2014).

"A tour de force of ground-breaking reportage . . . Forcing the Spring  follows the historic legal challenge mounted against California's ban on same-sex marriage, a remarkable lawsuit that forced the issue of marriage equality before the highest court of the land. For nearly five years Becker embedded with the lawsuit's plaintiffs, was given free rein within the legal and political war rooms where strategy was plotted, and attended every day of the trial and every appellate argument. Based on singular access to the internal workings of this momentous trial—and enlivened by original interviews with the participants on both sides of the case, many speaking for the first time—Forcing the Spring offers a gripping behind-the-scenes narrative with the lightning pace of the greatest legal thrillers."
—Forcing the Spring book jacket 

License to Wed: What Legal Marriage Means to Same-Sex Couples

Kimberly D. Richman (University of San Francisco). License to Wed (New York University Press, 2014). 

"This book examines the meanings of marriage for couples in the two first states that extended that right to same-sex couples: California and Massachusetts. The two states provide a compelling contrast: while in California the rights that go with marriage—inheritance, custody, and so forth—had already been granted to couples under the state's domestic partnership law, couples in Massachusetts did not previously have this same set of rights.  And while Massachusetts has offered civil marriage consistently since 2004, Californians have experienced a much more turbulent legal path.  And yet, same-sex couples in both states seek to marry for a variety of interacting, overlapping, and evolving reasons that do not vary significantly by location."
—License to Wed book jacket

The Geography of Love: Same-sex Marriage & Relationship Recognition in America (The Story in Maps)

Peter Nicolas & Mark Strong (University of Washington).  The Geography of Love, Third Edition (2013).

"With 15 years' experience as a geographic-information systems or mapping specialist, Strong scoured census records and maps for information that brought election results and gay rights together.  Nicolas, meanwhile, brought his legal mind to what was an exhaustive research effort, as well as a bit of insider knowledge. In 1992, as a 21-year-old graduate student at the University of Michigan, he was elected to the Ann Arbor City Council and voted on an ordinance extending domestic-partner benefits to city employees. As a law professor who teaches a class each year on GLBT rights and the constitution, Nicolas said he found domestic partnership registries in places 'where you didn't think they existed.'"
 —Lornet Turnbull, Seattle Times

States of the Union: Family and Change in the American Constitutional Order

Mark E. Brandon (Vanderbilt University). States of the Union (University Press of Kansas, 2013).

"A timely, substantive, and deeply engaging book that brilliantly analyzes the ever-changing place of families in American culture and law from colonial settlement to the contemporary debate over the constitutionality of gay marriage."
—David S. Tanenhaus, Boyd School of Law