Marriage equality battles (1 gen 1992 anni – 1 gen 2015 anni)

Descrizione:

Defense of marriage act:A law enacted by Congress in 1998 that allowed states to refuse to recognize gay marriages or civil unions formed in other jurisdictions. The Supreme Court ruled that DOMA was unconstitutional in 2013.
Webster v. Reproductive Health services:A 1989 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the authority of state governments to limit the use of public funds and facilities for abortions.
Planned parenthood of southeastern pennsylvania v. Casey:A 1992 Supreme Court case that upheld a law requiring a twenty-four-hour waiting period prior to an abortion. Although the decision upheld certain restrictions on abortions, it affirmed that women had a constitutional right to control their reproduction.
lawrence v. texas:A 2003 landmark decision by the Supreme Court that limited the power of states to prohibit private homosexual activity between consenting adults.

As more gay men and women came out of the closet in the years after Stonewall (see “Stonewall and Gay Liberation” in Chapter 27), they demanded legal protections from discrimination in housing, education, and employment. Public attitude toward such protections varied by region, but by the 1990s many cities and states had banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Gay rights groups also sought legal rights for same-sex couples — such as the eligibility for workplace health-care coverage — that were akin to those enjoyed by married heterosexuals. After the turn of the century, activists pushed to expand such protections to cover transgender persons. Many of the most prominent national gay rights organizations, such as the Human Rights Campaign, focused on full marriage equality: a legal recognition of same-sex marriage that was on par with opposite-sex marriages.

The Religious Right had long condemned homosexuality on moral grounds, and public opinion was split on legal protections. In 1992, Colorado voters approved an amendment to the state constitution that prevented local governments from enacting ordinances protecting gays and lesbians — a measure that the Supreme Court subsequently overturned as unconstitutional. That same year, however, Oregon voters defeated a more radical initiative that would have prevented the state from using any funds “to promote, encourage or facilitate” homosexuality. In 1996, Congress entered the fray by enacting the Defense of Marriage Act, which allowed states to refuse to recognize gay marriages or civil unions formed in other jurisdictions. However, following the lead of Massachusetts, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2004, in the first decades of the twenty-first century, ten states approved gay unions: California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, Washington, and Rhode Island. A decade later, in the 2015 decision Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not prohibit same-sex marriage under the constitution. Remarkably, in a generation, marriage equality had prevailed.

Obergefell v. Hodges highlighted a decades-long trend: as it had done since its landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the Supreme Court took up the divisive rights issues that roiled American citizens. Reproductive rights led the way, with abortion rights activists challenging the constitutionality of post-Roe state laws limiting access to the procedure. In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Supreme Court upheld the authority of state governments to limit the use of public funds and facilities for abortions. In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), the Court upheld a law requiring a twenty-four-hour waiting period prior to an abortion. Surveying these and other decisions, a reporter suggested that 1989 was “the year the Court turned right,” with a conservative majority poised to overturn or restrain liberal legislation and legal precedents.

This observation was only partly correct. The Court was not yet firmly conservative. Although the Casey decision upheld certain restrictions on abortions, it affirmed the “essential holding” in Roe that women had a constitutional right to control their reproduction. In Casey, Justice David Souter, appointed to the Court by President George H. W. Bush in 1990, voted with Reagan appointees Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy. It was Kennedy who authored the majority opinions in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), where the Supreme Court limited the power of states to prohibit private homosexual activity between consenting adults, and in Windsor v. United States (2013), which declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. To be certain, the court did move to the right, but it remained within the broad mainstream of American public opinion, particularly on the issues of reproduction and marriage equality.

Aggiunto al nastro di tempo:

Data: