When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: A Different Perspective; 2. Why Marry? The Value of Marriage; 3. Forsaking All Other Options; 4. The Impact of Gay Marriage on Heterosexuals; 5. Something Borrowed: Trying Marriage On; 6. Something New: Will Marriage Change Gay People?; 7. Marriage Dissent in the Gay Community; 8. Strange Bedfellows: Assessing Alternatives to Marriage; 9. The Pace of Change: Are We Moving Too Fast?; 10. Conclusion: Marriage under Renovation? Methods Appendix; Notes; Index; About the Author

"This is the best analysis of same-sex marriage to date. A brilliant book" Verta Taylor, co-author of Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret "While the summer of 2008 may have been "the summer of love" for American same-sex couples, as thousands flocked to California for marriage licenses, the summer of 2009 may go down in history as a time of profound contention and confusion over Proposition 8, which revoked those couples' right to marry. Still, as Badgett, the research director of the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA, argues, the transformation of the policy landscape for gays and lesbians was nothing short of remarkable, considering the very real possibility of a constitutional amendment to ban it just a few years earlier. Despite her optimism about gay unions, however, Badgett sets out to examine their potential impact in the U.S., using European Union countries, specifically the Netherlands--where same-sex couples have had the right to marry since 2001--as her rainbow-hued road map. Badgett's cogent and comprehensive study of the societal implications of same-sex marriage is learned and persuasive; gays and lesbians who once again pick up their protest signs and banners might do well to bring along Badgett's book as well."Publisher's Weekly, 6/15/2009 "Amid the intense controversy still surrounding same-sex marriage in the U.S., M.V. Lee Badgett speaks in a refreshingly tempered voice...[a] fine piece of social-science reseatch, painstakingly detailed and compelling in its findings." Ms. Magazine, July 2009