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Litigating Same-Sex Marriage: Might the Courts Actually Be Bastions of Rationality?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2005

Evan Gerstmann
Evan Gerstmann
Affiliation:
Loyola Marymount University
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Extract

The great political philosopher John Stuart Mill once asked, “Was there any domination which did not appear natural to those that possessed it?” (Mill 1984, 269–270). For same-sex couples seeking access to the institution of marriage, the public sense that marriage is naturally and obviously meant only for opposite-sex couples has been a formidable barrier. The first state supreme courts to rule on same-sex marriage, in the early 1970s, simply relied upon dictionary definitions to hold that marriage was obviously a heterosexual institution. Politicians mostly ignored the issue altogether until the courts of Hawaii, Vermont, and Massachusetts forced public debate of the issue.

Type
Symposium
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , April 2005 , pp. 217 - 220
Copyright
© 2005 by the American Political Science Association

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