Family Matters: Queer Households and the Half-Century Struggle for Legal Recognition [Hardcover]

How American law transformed from criminalizing queer life to recognizing and respecting the rights of same-sex couples to marry.Family Matters uncovers the decades of advocacy which reshaped same-sex sexuality in American law and society. It will speak to readers interested in queer rights, social movement advocacy, and legal studies, while further contributing to current discourse and ongoing battles over LGBTQ+ rights today.Family Matters uncovers the decades of advocacy which reshaped same-sex sexuality in American law and society. It will speak to readers interested in queer rights, social movement advocacy, and legal studies, while further contributing to current discourse and ongoing battles over LGBTQ+ rights today.In 1960, consensual sodomy was a crime in every state in America. Fifty-five years later, the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples had the fundamental right to marry. In the span of two generations, American law underwent a dramatic transformation. Though the fight for marriage equality has received a considerable amount of attention from scholars and the media, it was only a small part of the more than half-century struggle for queer family rights. Family Matters uncovers these decades of advocacy, which reshaped the place of same-sex sexuality in American law and society  and ultimately made marriage equality possible. This book, however, is more than a history of queer rights. Marie-Am?lie George reveals that national legal change resulted from shifts at the state and local levels, where the central figures were everyday people without legal training. Consequently, she offers a new way of understanding how minority groups were able to secure meaningful legal change.Introduction; Part I. Queer Partners and Parents: 1. Legalizing queer life: Alfred Kinsey and criminal law reform; 2. Contesting custody: social science and queer parental rights; 3. Recognizing relationships: corporate and municipal domestic partnership programs during the AIDlÃ+