The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's ruling in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health in November 2003, finding a right to marriage for same-sex couples, triggered a chain of highly visible and dramatic developments in marriage law and politics. In early 2004, after hearing President George W. Bush vow to protect the sanctity of marriage in his State of the Union address, newly elected San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom took the bold step of having his city hall issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Local authorities in several jurisdictions around the country—including Sandoval County in New Mexico, Multnomah County in Oregon, and tiny New Paltz, New York—quickly followed suit. These marriages were eventually voided by courts, but they further dramatized the rights claims of same-sex couples. In May 2004, Massachusetts began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples residing in the state, and it remains the only state with legal same-sex marriage. In reaction, 13 states passed constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage in late 2004, and some political analysts concluded that these amendments helped galvanize social conservative voters and secure President Bush's re-election. Since the 2004 elections, three more state supreme courts have ruled on same-sex marriage rights, with two rejecting such claims (New York and Washington) and one finding a right to the legal equivalent of marriage (New Jersey). With court cases and amendment battles pending in several other states, the end of the story of legal same-sex marriage in the United States remains unwritten.

Daniel Pinello's book America's Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage provides a carefully researched and clearly written account of the legal and political events catalyzed by the Goodridge ruling. Using information from 85 in-depth interviews with activists, government officials, and ordinary same-sex couples, Pinello paints detailed portraits of how the marriage battles unfolded in various locales. The book begins with the somewhat quirky case of Sandoval County, New Mexico, where a renegade Republican county clerk issued 64 marriage licenses in one day, and later chapters document more extensively the conflicts in Massachusetts, California, Oregon, and New York. Pinello asserts that his case studies represent “a microcosm of the American legal and political universe” (p. 30), raising broader questions about the role and impact of courts in a democratic society, the influence of interest groups, and the interplay of policy initiative and political process. Pinello argues that Goodridge and the ensuing events will prove highly significant in historical terms, and he expresses confidence (as a same-sex marriage supporter) that the long-term progress set in motion by Goodridge will ultimately outweigh the short-term backlash it so obviously provoked.

This book has considerable strengths, including access to key players in same-sex marriage contests at the local and national levels, a writing style that is relatively free of social science jargon, and a willingness to let informants speak for themselves at some length, which sometimes produces fascinating nuggets of information and insight. Some of the more striking observations come from people involved in the month-long “Winter of Love” in February–March 2004, when San Francisco City Hall issued marriage licenses to more than 4,000 same-sex couples. Pinello's informants provide compelling accounts of the intensity of emotion and the sense of solemn significance that characterized this milieu, in contrast to the media's tendency to depict the events in carnivalesque terms. Also striking are the same-sex couple informants who recount how, contrary to their expectations, the experience of legal marriage deeply changed their own sense of their relationships. The interviews with activists fighting for same-sex marriage often belie the right-wing canard of a highly coordinated and centralized “gay agenda,” as some activists describe how legal and political developments unfolded quickly and haphazardly. Kate Kendell, director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, recounts being called by a staffer for Mayor Newsom shortly before he started issuing licenses to same-sex couples and gradually coming to the realization that the purpose of the call was not to consult with her on strategy, but simply to give her a heads-up on what was about to occur (pp. 76–7). And Roey Thorpe, director of the gay rights group Basic Rights Oregon, recalls how the marriages in San Francisco upended her organization's carefully developed plans to pursue marriage licenses later that year: “There were so many forces from so many different angles that it felt like we were both moving things forward and caught almost in this stampede. It was like the running of the bulls” (p. 107). Pinello also lets activists opposing same-sex marriage have their say, and some readers will wince at their disingenuous claims that they harbor no hostility toward gay people and that same-sex couples can access all the rights and benefits of marriage through other legal means.

Pinello's book is valuable for providing detailed documentation of the fast-moving recent events related to same-sex marriage, and for recounting these stories in a highly accessible manner. The book is probably most appropriate for undergraduate readers and for members of the general public seeking insider accounts of the politics of same-sex marriage; it will hold less appeal for more advanced sociolegal scholars. The author uses extensive block quotes from his interviews but often adds little analysis or interpretation to the words of his informants, giving the book a more journalistic than scholarly tone. When Pinello returns in the concluding chapter to some of the theoretical issues identified at the start of the book, concerning the role and impact of courts and interest groups, he has not built the foundation for the argument he wants to make. Pinello concludes that Goodridge and the ensuing events demonstrate that courts offer more than a “hollow hope” of social justice (Reference RosenbergRosenberg 1991), as these events show how a key ruling can reframe the terms of political debate and spur both ordinary citizens and entrenched interest groups to political action with a long-run positive outcome. But this argument is not systematically developed over the course of the book, and it seems too early in the American saga of same-sex marriage to draw such an unambiguous conclusion.