@article{452510,
      recid = {452510},
      author = {Klarman, Michael J.},
      title = {From the closet to the altar : courts, backlash, and the  struggle for same-sex marriage /},
      publisher = {Oxford University Press,},
      address = {Oxford ;},
      pages = {xii, 276 p. :},
      year = {2013},
      abstract = {"Same-sex marriage, a politically and culturally untenable  idea only a quarter century ago, has become one of the most  controversial issues in American life. Social conservatives  are adamantly opposed to it and vote-conscious liberal  politicians tiptoe around it, but an emerging majority's  support for it makes it seem all but inevitable. While most  observers seem to think that the legalization of gay  marriage across the nation will occur at some point in the  near future, in the meantime it continues to generate a  sharp political backlash that has helped its opponents  score political victories (even if they prove to be  short-lived). If most young people support gay marriage,  and if there are clear indicators that a majority of the  population will support it in the very near future, why is  the backlash so strong? As Michael Klarman will show in  From the Closet to the Altar, it is because its proponents  have adopted a court-centered approach for advancing their  cause. In many states, advocates have taken to the courts  and argued that bans on gay marriage are denials of civil  rights. They have followed the path of earlier civil rights  advocates, who also chose the court rather than the  political arena as a forum to decide issues. But as Klarman  shows, this tactic comes with clear costs. Using the courts  to leapfrog public opinion can actually set a cause back  because court decisions generate backlashes. Usually,  judges are neither elected nor beholden to public opinion,  and they are easily pegged as unaccountable elites by  opponents. Klarman, who has examined virtually every  state-level judicial decision and all of the legislative  attempts to overturn same-sex marriage, contends that the  movement has in many respects not only hurt its own cause  by generating populist backlash, but has created a  countervailing social movement that works against  progressive causes on a host of other issues. Given the  irreversible tectonic shift in public opinion regarding the  issue, he argues that it will occur anyway. By providing  such fuel to its opponents (much like with Roe v. Wade),  the movement is in danger of creating a powerful  countermovement that will use the issue for proponents of  gay rights for years to come. Concise yet sweeping in  scope, From the Closet to the Altar is not only a worthy  successor to his Bancroft Prize-winning From Jim Crow to  Civil Rights, it will reshape how we think about the  issue"--},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/452510},
}