Publication Date

Spring 2009

Journal

Rutgers Law Review

Abstract

A great deal has changed about the legal and social situation for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender (LGBT) people since the 1989 publication of Tom Stoddard and Paula Ettelbrick's dueling essays about how the quest for same-sex marriage fit into the larger struggle for LGBT rights. In 1989, twenty-four states and the District of Columbia criminalized most forms of adult consensual sex between people of the same sex and the constitutionality of such sodomy laws had been recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Bowers v. Hardwick in an opinion that said arguments against the constitutionality of such laws were "facetious." Second, discrimination against LGBT people was legal under federal law and the law of almost every other jurisdiction in the country. Third, in 1989, no state recognized same-sex relationships to a degree even remotely approaching the extent that married different-sex couples were recognized. A handful of local jurisdictions-six or seven cities (but not even one county) across the entire nation-had passed domestic partnership ordinances or laws that would register samesex relationships and, in some jurisdictions, different-sex couples who were living together in intimate relationships, but these jurisdictions gave registered domestic partners very limited and specific benefits (such as bereavement leave for a city employee whose registered partner died). Further, although various same-sex couples had been filing lawsuits demanding equal recognition for their relationships for almost twenty years, not a single judge had been persuaded to give legal recognition to same-sex couples.

Volume

61

Issue

3

First Page

567

Last Page

594

Publisher

Rutgers Law School

Keywords

Transgender, Gender Identity, Discrimination, Social Group Issues, Gender and the Law, Sexuality and the Law, Public Accommodations, Organizations

Disciplines

Civil Rights and Discrimination | Law | Law and Gender | Sexuality and the Law

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