From the Closet to the Courtroom: Five LGBT Rights Lawsuits That Have Changed Our Nation (Queer Action Queer Ideas)

297 Pages·2010·1.08 MB·English

by  Carlos A. Ball

From the Closet
to the Courtro om
other Bo oks By Ca rlo s a. Ball
The Morality of Gay Rights:
An Exploration in Political Philosophy
Cases and Materials on Sexual Orientation and the Law
(with William Rubenstein and Jane S. Schacter)
other Bo oks i n
the Quee r aCtion serie s
Come Out and Win: Organizing Yourself,
Your Community, and Your World, by Sue Hyde
Out Law: What LGBT Youth Should Know
about Their Legal Rights, by Lisa Keen
other Bo oks i n
the Quee r ideas series
Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage:
Valuing All Families under the Law, by Nancy D. Polikoff
F r o m t h e C l o s e t
t o t h e C o u r t r o o m
Five LGBT Rights Lawsuits
That Have Changed Our Nation
C a r l o s a. Ba l l
Queer aCtion/Queer ideas
A Series Edited by Michael Bronski
BeaCon Press, Boston
Beacon Press
25 Beacon Street
Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892
www.beacon.org
Beacon Press books
are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
© 2010 by Carlos A. Ball
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
13 12 11 10 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the uncoated paper
ANSI/NISO specifications for permanence as revised in 1992.
Composition by Wilsted & Taylor Publishing Services
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ball, Carlos A.
From the closet to the courtroom : five LGBT rights lawsuits
that have changed our nation / Carlos A. Ball.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-0-8070-0078-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Gay rights—United States—Digests. 2. Homosexuality—Law and
legislation—United States—Digests. 3. Discrimination—Law and legislation—
United States—Digests. 4. Gay couples—Legal status, laws, etc.—United
States—Digests. 5. Actions and defenses—United States. I. Title.
kF4754.5.a53B35 2009
342.7308’7—dc22 2009027667
To Miguel Braschi, Jamie Nabozny, Angela Romero,
Genora Dancel, Ninia Baehr, John Lawrence,
and Tyron Garner for their courage.
And to Richard Storrow, Emmanuel Ball-Storrow,
and Sebastian Ball-Storrow for their love.

Contents
ix A Note from the Series Editor
1 Introduction
21 ChaPter 1
Family
67 ChaPter 2
Harassment
99 ChaPter 3
Discrimination
151 ChaPter 4
Marriage
199 ChaPter 5
Sex
249 Conclusion
263 Where Are They Now?
265 Acknowledgments
266 Notes
275 Index

A Note from the Series Editor
soCial-justiCe movements are tapestries woven from many
threads: justice, anger, compassion, courage, pain, and a firm sense of
legal right and wrong. But we frequently forget that these valiant, ad-
mirable qualities are always embodied by people—often everyday, av-
erage people—whose lives, emotions, and fears are integral not only
to the movements but to how change happens. These lives are some
of the most brilliant, striking—and emotionally moving—threads in
the tapestry, and they are the most overlooked.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender movement in the United
States is relatively young. Although it began just over five decades ago
it has, along with feminism, radically changed how we think about
sexuality and gender, families and relationships, love and even death.
Much of this change has been driven by the long and difficult legal
battles that LGBT activists have fought. Carlos Ball’s From the Closet
to the Courtroom: Five LGBT Rights Lawsuits That Have Changed Our
Nation reminds us in vivid prose and wonderful detail that these legal
battles are, in the end, about people and their stories. Ball has taken
five landmark decisions from the dry, academic pages of law journals
and the livelier pages of newspapers and placed them in the larger,
engaging, far broader context of human experience and everyday life.
Ball isn’t just recounting great stories here—although they are as com-
ix